5. Conclusions
lean mass gain, sarcopenia, malnutrition
SARCOPENIA, MALNUTRITION
Taken together, our results reveal that a nutritional intervention with the Mediterranean diet in patients with HF results in improvement of functionality, QoL, and cardiac function. Furthermore, the use of a hypercaloric, hyperproteic OS (with slow-release carbohydrates, omega-3, and omega-6) is associated with lean mass gain, cell mass gain, improvement in biochemical nutritional parameters, and a more significant improvement in functionality, QoL, and LVEF, and a decrease in NT-proBNP serum levels, after 24 weeks of intervention. Regular recommendations of the Mediterranean diet should be provided to all patients after HF admission. Furthermore, malnutrition and sarcopenia screening should be regularly implemented before discharge, in order to recommend the use of OSs in patients with (or at risk of) malnutrition or sarcopenia. Additional head-to-head studies, with a larger sample size and comparing different OS formulas, should be performed.