The current review aims to summarize the complex relationship between SARS-CoV-2 infection and nutritional status and the effects of malnutrition in terms of disease severity, patients’ recovery time, incidence of complications and mortality rate.

Nutritional and metabolic disturbances are observed in patients critically ill with COVID-19. At each step of the progression of the disease, ICU patients with COVID-19 should be carefully evaluated in terms of malnutrition risk and medical nutritional support. 

Acute kidney disease (AKD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are highly prevalent among hospitalized patients and they have important metabolic and nutritional consequences. Moreover, in case of kidney replacement therapy the possible impact on nutritional profiles, substrate balance, and nutritional treatment processes cannot be neglected.  

This is the first European study reporting on respiratory follow-up outcomes after SARS CoV-2 infection.

Energy expenditure appears highly variable among critically ill patients and in individual patients during various phases of illness. As a consequence, critically ill patients are at considerable risk of under- or overfeeding during ICU and post-ICU hospital stay, when rough and static estimates are used. The most recent international guidelines recommend regular indirect calorimetry to measure energy expenditure as a proxy for caloric requirement in ICU patients.