Caloric restriction may not improve outcomes in some ventilator-dependent patients.

MedPage Today (2/6, Bankhead) reports, "Caloric restriction failed to improve outcomes in ventilator-dependent patients with acute lung injury, results of an NIH-sponsored, multicenter trial showed." The trial showed that "60-day mortality and infection rates...did not differ between treatment groups, according to data reported simultaneously at the Society of Critical Care Medicine meeting...and online in" the Journal of the American Medical Association. An accompanying editorial argued, however, that "this study was not designed or powered as an equivalence study and does not provide definitive data to inform clinicians about how much nutritional support is enough, how early it should be started, or even if there should be 'no nutrition provision' in the initial phase of critical illness."