Resting energy expenditure and optimal nutrition in critical care: how to guide our calorie prescriptions

Excerpt

We thank Berger et al. [1] for their interesting comment regarding our study [2]. Briefly, they suggest that “feeding progression days” might induce bias so that the administered calories/resting energy expenditure (REE) percentage (% Adcal/REE) we show associated with better outcome is lower than the “true” mean. We agree that for the short-stayers included in the cited studies this remark is pertinent, but we would like to exclude studies based on predictive equations since they lack accuracy and may mislead our understanding. According to clinical practice [3], calories are usually increased progressively to the plateau target, but in addition, calories administered may vary during ICU stay due to interruptions in nutrition administration, making evaluations even more complicated. …