Surgery today
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Review Meta Analysis
Preoperative carbohydrate loading for elective surgery: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
It is unclear whether the preoperative administration of oral carbohydrates (CHO) is safe and effective, and therefore we herein evaluated the efficacy and adverse events associated with CHO for elective surgery. ⋯ CHO appears to be safe, and may attenuate postoperative insulin resistance as compared to placebo. However, the quality of most of the published trials has been poor, and the evidence levels for most outcomes were low, so rigorous and larger RCTs are needed in the future.