Grant: Project Grant

Millions of patients worldwide suffer from intestinal failure, a condition where the gut is unable to absorb the necessary amount of food, fluids, and vitamins. These are predominantly critically ill patients or patients undergoing major surgeries, prolonged cancer therapies and infants born prematurely. In these cases, intravenous feeding (termed parenteral nutrition) is required to allow survival, maintain health, and, in the case of children, to support growth and development. Currently available intravenous feeding therapies have many adverse effects such as liver inflammation, increased rate of infections and diabetes-like conditions, which reduce the quality of life and increase the likelihood of death. Over the past five years we have developed a novel fat emulsion (a liquid composed of fat and water) based on specific plant-derived oils termed Vegaven in our laboratories. Vegaven has unique properties, namely strong anti-inflammatory effects combined with beneficial effects on both sugar and fat metabolism in the whole body when given to mice. It also boosts the immune system to efficaciously counteract potentially dangerous infections. In this proposal we will test Vegaven in comparison to standard treatment in a pig model of intravenous feeding mimicking close to patient conditions and in tissue samples collected from the bowel of patients. The proposed experiments will provide additional important scientific evidence necessary to initiate clinical studies in patients. We anticipate that Vegaven will dramatically improve the safety and tolerability of intravenous nutrition in patients, potentially reduce the likelihood of death, improve their quality of life, and reduce the health care costs associated with intravenous feeding.