Nutrition is an important part of therapy for critically ill patients. Continuous feeding is the most popular enteral feeding mode in the ICU because of its lower nursing burden and theoretically better intestinal toleration. However, continuous feeding is nonphysiological. In our opinion, feeding mode should be changed according to gastrointestinal function and disease progression; one singe feeding mode is not always suitable for critically ill patients. We proposed a feeding mode called sequential feeding, as it utilizes a combination of continuous feeding in the beginning, time-restricted feeding in the second stage, and oral feeding at last.~The gut microbiota plays a critical role in human health due to its many useful functions, such as metabolism, vitamin metabolism, and maintenance of the intestinal barrier and immune system. Not only dietary structure but also eating mode (eating time for example) influenced the gut microbiota in a healthy population. Therefore, we think this new feeding mode, sequential feeding, also has different influences on gut microbiota and metabolomics in critically ill patients compared to continuous feeding.
Continuous feeding is the most popular enteral feeding mode in the ICU because of its lower nursing burden and theoretically better intestinal toleration. However, continuous feeding is nonphysiological. We proposed a feeding mode called sequential feeding, as it utilizes a combination of continuous feeding in the beginning, time-restricted feeding in the second stage, and oral feeding at last.~The gut microbiota plays a critical role in human health due to its many useful functions. Not only dietary structure but also eating mode (eating time for example) influenced the gut microbiota in a healthy population. Therefore, we think this new feeding mode, sequential feeding, also has different influences on gut microbiota and metabolomics in critically ill patients compared to continuous feeding.