A randomized placebo controlled trial of preoperative carbohydrate drinks and early postoperative nutritional supplement drinks in colorectal surgery.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Dietary Carbohydrates.

There is little information on their individual contribution.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

A prospective four-arm double-blind controlled trial was carried out in which patients were randomized to carbohydrate or placebo drinks preoperatively and a polymeric supplement or placebo drink postoperatively.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Dietary Carbohydrates study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Dietary Carbohydrates, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Dietary Carbohydrates, giving a reference point.

The primary outcome was insulin resistance (using the short insulin tolerance test and HOMA-IR).

Secondary outcomes included handgrip strength, pulmonary function, intestinal permeability and postoperative complications.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Beverages, Blood Glucose, Colectomy, Colorectal Neoplasms, Dietary Carbohydrates, Dietary Supplements and Hand Strength.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Dietary Carbohydrates.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2013 (Colorectal disease : the official journal of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.