© 2014 American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition

ncp.sagepub.com hosted at online.sagepub.com Invited Review In critically ill patients who are unable to resume oral food intake, artificial nutrition has evolved into a primary therapeu-tic intervention with the aim to improve the outcome by attenu-ating the stress-induced catabolic response and preventing adverse outcomes related to nutrition deficits or preexisting malnutrition. There is widespread agreement among interna-tional nutrition guidelines that early enteral nutrition (EN) should be preferentially used within the first 24–48 hours after intensive care unit (ICU) admission in patients without an absolute contraindication to EN.1–3 Apart from the nutrition benefits, early EN is considered to maintain structural an