Effects of Whey Protein on the Recovery of Surgical PatientsAbstract

Abstract

The postoperative complications increased the length of stay by up to 9,7 days, leading to greater discomfort, pain, and suffering for the patient, as well as higher resource consumption and hospital costs. Approximately 18 % of patients undergoing some type of surgical procedure have an inadequate nutritional status. Currently, a multimodal prehabilitation strategy is being developed focusing on addressing nutritional, psychological and physical deficiencies presented by patients, with the aim of reducing potential complications during postoperative period. Among these strategies is supplementation with whey protein. The purpose of this review is to identify the effects of whey protein in multimodal prehabilitation and recovery of post-surgical patients. A literature review was conducted using databases such as SciELO, Elsevier, Pubmed, Springer; Boolean operators such as AND, OR, and NOT were used to optimize the search for studies.  Review articles, original research and meta-analyses in English and Spanish, published between 2020 and 2025 were included. Studies have shown positive and favorable results regarding the use of whey protein in multimodal prehabilitation and the recovery of postoperative patients, although more studies are needed to cover all the different types of surgical pathologies.