Nutrition in pediatric populations who require life-saving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) remains a debate. We sought to identify if nutritional needs were met in a patient cohort. A retrospective chart review of patients (N = 64) requiring ECMO at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital between 2018 and 2022 was evaluated for demographics, daily nutritional data, laboratory values, ECMO complications, and outcome data, with primary outcome measures of percent protein and percent caloric intake. Secondary outcome measures included the intensive care unit length of stay, time on ECMO, mortality, and day 1 severity of illness scores (Pediatric Logistic Organ Dysfunction). The timeline partially overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected for 467 ECMO days with a median age of 2.6 months; 57.8% of patients were male and 65.6% were with one pre-existing comorbidity. Venoarterial (VA) ECMO was utilized in 84.4% of patients; the ECMO indication was cardiac in 53.1% of patients. The 28-day mortality was 43.8%. The proportion of days in which the caloric goal was met was 0%; the proportion of days in which protein goals were met was 33.3%. Non-cardiac ECMO patients had a greater number of days where caloric goals were met (p-value = 0.04). Mortality at 28 days was not statistically significant (p-value = 0.28) for calories or protein administered. The patient cohort struggled to meet calorie and protein goals while on ECMO.

Lifestyle medicine focuses on six pillars: a predominantly whole food, plant-based dietary pattern, physical activity, stress management, avoidance of risky substances, sleep, and positive social connection. Lifestyle medicine has been shown to be effective in treating heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension, among others. Despite these data, lifestyle medicine education amongst medical schools continues to be inadequate. Lifestyle Medicine Interest Groups (LMIGs) are student-led organizations which work to fill the gap in lifestyle medicine education by holding a variety of programming for their student bodies, while concurrently advocating for designated lifestyle medicine education within formal curricula. The Donald A. Pegg Student Leadership Award was created by Dr. Beth Frates, current President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, to recognize outstanding student leaders in the field of lifestyle medicine, and specifically for the work related to their LMIG. The Donald A. Pegg Award provides recipients with LMIG funding for their respective institutions, complementary registration for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine national conference, and a stipend for conference travel. The funding provided by the Donald A. Pegg Award allows LMIGs to expand their reach to their greater student bodies, helping to further the field of lifestyle medicine. The purpose of this article is to highlight the 2022 Donald A. Pegg award recipients and how they are using its merit to advance the field of lifestyle medicine.

Background/Objectives: Multiple independent variables were analyzed to determine total nutritional intake (caloric and protein), while reviewing vasoactive inotrope scores (VISs). Methods: Retrospective data were collected for nutritional intake (N = 64), daily VISs, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) complications, delays in nutritional intake (>48 h), reason for delay, and interruptions in nutrition support. Results: VISs and ECMO characteristics analyzed by box–whisker plots demonstrated that ECMO complications prior to 24 h, cardiac arrest 24 h prior to ECMO, pediatric ECMO patients, venoarterial ECMO type, having a cardiac ECMO indication, and ECMO centrifugal pump had higher VISs. A regression analysis revealed that venovenous ECMO patients and the centrifugal pump type had higher caloric and protein intake; subsequently, for each increase in VIS, caloric intake decreased by −0.54. Sixteen patients did not receive nutritional support while on ECMO (9/16; 56% cardiac); 12/48 (25%) had a delay, with the cardiac patients nearing statistical significance. Conclusion: Venovenous ECMO (non-cardiac) correlated with higher nutritional intake. The enteral administration of nutrition had a lower VIS on average compared to the other three groupings, namely enteral vs. parenteral; enteral vs. both enteral and parenteral; enteral vs. no nutrition. This study provides additional clinical insight on nutritional intake in ECMO patients.