The safety and effectiveness of high-calorie therapy for treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disorder affecting the upper and lower motor neurons, which can lead to death from respiratory failure within 3–5 years after the onset of this disease.

Nowadays, no drug can effectively slow down the progression of this disease.

High-calorie therapy, an emerging complementary alternative treatment, has been reported in studies to prolong the survival time of patients, prevent muscle atrophy and provide a better prognosis.

However, no systematic review and meta-analysis were performed to summarize the evidence of this therapy.

This meta-analysis comprehensively evaluates the effectiveness and safety of high-calorie therapy for treating ALS.

Methods We searched the electronic databases from inception to 1 April 2023: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Scopus, Ovid/Medline, and ProQuest.

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that met the inclusion criteria were performed by meta-analysis.

All statistical analyses were performed in STATA software.

Results A total of six eligible RCTs were included in this meta-analysis, involving 370 ALS patients.

The meta-analyses showed that high-calorie therapy had superiority in improving body weight (SMD = 1, 95% CI 0.36, 1.65) and BMI (SMD = 0.83, 95% CI 0.02, 1.63).

With respect to safety, there was no difference between the high-calorie therapy and the control group regarding the number of adverse events (RR = 3.61, 95% CI 0.08, 162.49).

However, ALSFRS-R scores (SMD = 0.34, 95% CI − 0.4, 1.08), survival rate (RR = 1.23, 95% CI 0.98, 1.55), and lipid profile (LDL: SMD = 0.21, 95% CI − 0.33, 0.75; HDL: SMD = 0.17, 95% CI − 0.37, 0.71; TC: SMD = 0.21, 95% CI − 0.33, 0.75), CRP (SMD = 0.85, 95% CI − 1.37, 3.06) showed no significant difference compared to the control groups.

Conclusions High-calorie therapy is effective in gaining weight and BMI with few side effects.

However, no significant superiority was detected in ALSFRS-R scores, survival time, lipid profile, and CRP indicator.

The overall quality of the included studies is high, and the results have some credibility, but future corroboration by high-quality RCTs is also expected.