Purpose

The purpose of this study is to determine whether modifying the timing of nutrition support from overnight to daytime enhances sleep quality, preserves circadian rhythms, and improves overall inflammation and cardiometabolic profiles in postoperative patients in the cardiac surgical ICU on enteral nutrition.

Conditions

Eligibility

Eligible Ages
Over 18 Years
Eligible Genders
All
Accepts Healthy Volunteers
No

Inclusion Criteria

  • Adult male or non-pregnant female volunteers (age 18+) - Scheduled for a cardiac surgical procedure with planned post-operative admission to the ICU for >48 hours - Able and willing to give consent and comply with study procedures

Exclusion Criteria

  • Blind, deaf or unable to speak English - Women who are pregnant or nursing - Contraindications to safe use enteral nutrition, including gastrointestinal obstruction - Personal history of intestinal malabsorption, gallbladder disease or pancreatitis - Dietary restrictions precluding enteral feeds - Renal and liver failure requiring dialysis or Child-Pugh score > 7 - Chronic therapy with benzodiazepines and/or antipsychotics - Severe deficit due to structural or anoxic brain damage - With skin condition that precludes wearing sensors

Study Design

Phase
N/A
Study Type
Interventional
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention Model
Crossover Assignment
Primary Purpose
Supportive Care
Masking
None (Open Label)

Arm Groups

ArmDescriptionAssigned Intervention
Experimental
Nighttime cycled enteral feeds first
Patients will start nighttime cycled enteral feeds first for 12 hours. Following a 24-hour washout period, patients will then start daytime cycled enteral feeds for 12 hours.
  • Dietary Supplement: Time-of-day of enteral nutrition provision (nighttime first)
    Enteral nutrition (tube feeds) will be provided during the nighttime followed by daytime.
Experimental
Daytime cycled enteral feeds first
Patients will start daytime cycled enteral feeds first for 12 hours. Following a 24-hour washout period, patients will then start nighttime cycled enteral feeds for 12 hours.
  • Dietary Supplement: Time-of-day of enteral nutrition provision (daytime first)
    Enteral nutrition (tube feeds) will be provided during the daytime followed by nighttime.

Recruiting Locations

Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, Massachusetts 02114
Contact:
Hassan S Dashti

More Details

Status
Recruiting
Sponsor
Massachusetts General Hospital

Study Contact

Hassan S Dashti, Ph.D., R.D.
617-643-7167
chrononutrition@mgh.harvard.edu

Detailed Description

Intensive care unit (ICU) environments do not support sleep or preserve circadian rhythms of postoperative critically ill patients. Among the contributing factors is the common practice of administering nutrition support through feeding tubes overnight. The overall objective of the study is to examine a novel dimension of clinical nutrition by determining whether enhancing sleep quality and preserving robust circadian rhythms through daytime instead of overnight feeds will attenuate inflammation and improve cardiometabolic profiles of postoperative cardiac ICU patients on nutrition support. The investigators hypothesize that overnight nutrition support results in fragmented sleep and blunted circadian rhythms and thus represent a modifiable mechanism exacerbating inflammation and cardiometabolic derangements in postoperative cardiac patients. Results of this study will help in the development of evidence-based, cost-efficient, and effective enteral nutrition timing countermeasures against fragmented sleep, disrupted circadian rhythms, inflammation and cardiometabolic derangements and potentially modify the current widespread practice of overnight nutrition likely affecting 250,000 hospital admissions annually in the United States.

Notice

Study information shown on this site is derived from ClinicalTrials.gov (a public registry operated by the National Institutes of Health). The listing of studies provided is not certain to be all studies for which you might be eligible. Furthermore, study eligibility requirements can be difficult to understand and may change over time, so it is wise to speak with your medical care provider and individual research study teams when making decisions related to participation.