Translating the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism 2019 guidelines into practice.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To present a pragmatic approach to facilitate clinician's implementing the recent European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN) guidelines on clinical nutrition in the intensive care unit.

RECENT FINDINGS: The ESPEN guidelines include 54 recommendations with a rationale for each recommendation. All data published since 1 January 2000 was reviewed and 31 meta-analyses were performed to inform these guidelines. An important aspect of the most recent ESPEN guidelines is an attempt to separate periods of critical illness into discrete - early acute, late acute and recovery - phases, with each exhibiting different metabolic profiles and requiring different strategies for nutritional and metabolic support.

SUMMARY: A pragmatic approach to incorporate the recent ESPEN guidelines into everyday clinical practice is provided.