Figure 1

Effect of nutrition support on total body protein in patients with an acute flare of ulcerative colitis. Conversely to patients with standard care (broken line; mean age 47.6 ± 12.1 years, mean weight 59.4 ± 12.5 kg), ulcerative colitis patients with total parenteral nutrition (TPN; solid black line; mean age 42.6 ± 10.2 years, mean weight 60.8 ± 10.6 kg) received TPN from hospital admission until day 14 after surgery. Patients without TPN showed a rapid body protein loss that fell under the critical threshold before hospital admission, and worsened during the perioperative period. On the contrary, TPN prevented the worsening of protein body loss during the perioperative period and was associated with an earlier restoration (18 weeks earlier) of normal protein stores (mean ± standard deviation). Reproduced with permission from [14].