Nutrition of the Burned Patient and Treatment of the Hypermetabolic Response

It is well documented that burn patients undergo a unique response after burn, characterized by its complexity and intricacy, termed the hypermetabolic response. We learned over the past decades that this hypermetabolic response is not a singular path. It involves all kinds of aspects and major alterations that ultimately all lead to one outcome, catabolism, and degradation of vital and essential building blocks. Interestingly, a certain degree of stress-induced catabolism and degradation is required to fight off the burn trauma but when this response become persistent, that is when hypermetabolism causes detrimental outcomes. In this chapter, we delineate metabolic responses in terms of organs, and individual components such as glucose, lipids, and amino acids. We also give some indication of how hypermetabolism and stress responses can be alleviated and give an overview about novel treatments.