Skip to main content
ARS Home » Plains Area » Houston, Texas » Children's Nutrition Research Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #356534
Title: Energy intake and expenditure in children with heart failure

Author
item HOOVER, JOHN - BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
item WONG, WILLIAM - CHILDREN'S NUTRITION RESEARCH CENTER (CNRC)
item ADACHI, IKI - BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
item BRANDT, PAIGE - TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL
item JEEWA, AAMIR - HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN (SICKKIDS)

Submitted to: Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/1/2018
Publication Date: 8/7/2018
Citation: Hoover, J.D., Wong, W.W., Adachi, I., Brandt, P., Jeewa, A. 2018. Energy intake and expenditure in children with heart failure. Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1097/PCC.0000000000001697.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1097/PCC.0000000000001697

Interpretive Summary: Poor growth is common among children with heart failure. Not much is known about the cause of poor growth among these children. Inadequate caloric intake might be an issue and yet not much is known about the caloric needs of children with heart failure. A stable isotope method known as the doubly labeled water method is the gold standard to measure caloric needs under free-living conditions. We used the method to measure the caloric needs of five children with heart failure between 0.3 and 5.1 years of age. All five children showed poor growth at time of study. Three of the children had caloric intake met or exceeded their measured caloric needs. Two patients had caloric intake lower than their measured caloric needs. When compared to caloric needs of published age- and gender-matched healthy children, three had caloric needs similar to healthy children, one had higher caloric need than healthy children and one had lower caloric need than healthy children. It is a common belief that children with heart failure burned more calories. Our data showed that this common belief is incorrect. More studies are needed to fully understand the caloric needs of children with heart failure in order to prevent poor growth and to improve the outcome of heart transplant.

Technical Abstract: Up to one third of children with heart failure exhibit growth failure. Limited data exists reporting energy requirements in this population. A study was designed to characterize the energy intake and total daily energy expenditure of children with heart failure using the doubly labeled water method. Prospective study using doubly labeled water to measure total daily energy expenditure in children with heart failure. Doubly labeled water was administered orally and daily urine samples collected for 10 days. Total daily energy expenditure was compared with historic data from age- and gender-matched healthy population. Anthropometrics and 3-day calorie count were also done.