Late evening snack: Exploiting a period of anabolic opportunity in cirrhosis

Background and Aim: Cirrhosis is a state of accelerated starvation with impaired protein synthesis. Increased rate of gluconeogenesis and alterations in skeletal muscle signaling pathways result in anabolic resistance and consequent loss of muscle mass or sarcopenia in cirrhosis. Late evening snack (LES) is an intervention to reduce the postabsorptive (fasting) phase with the potential to improve substrate utilization and reverse sarcopenia. Published reports were evaluated to examine the effect of LES on regulation of substrate utilization (short‐term studies) and nutritional outcomes (long‐term studies). Methods: PubMed, EMBASE, Google scholar and OVID databases were searched. All studies published on LES in cirrhosis were included. Studies that included few (n