ESPEN News

On July 29-30, the conference of the Egyptian Parenteral and Enteral Society (EgSPEN) will take place in Cairo. Strengthening the lnks between EgSPEN and ESPEN, during the conference six LLL courses (renal diseases, paediatric patients, elderly, cancer, neurological diseases, respiratory diseases) will be offered to the delegates.

The ESPEN Life Long Learnig (LLL) Programme offers experienced teacher the possibility to become a LLL Teacher. By attending the Teach The Teacher (TTT) course during the upcoming ESPEN congress in Nice, you will be recognized by ESPEN as an official LLL teacher. The TTT course is scheduled on Saturday, September 4, 2010, from 9.00 till 13.00. Read more about the criteria requested and how to apply by clicking here. The deadline for submitting the application is July 31, 2010.

During the congress in Nice, the ESPEN General Assembly will convene. Please read the agenda of the meeting, and the minutes of last year’s general assembly in Vienna, which will be approved in Nice.

While preparing for the upcoming ESPEN congress in Nice, do not forget to book your agenda for the 2011 A.S.P.E.N.’s Clinical Nutrition Week. This is a great opportunity to present your work and engage in lively scientific discussions, but please note that abstract submission closes on September 15, 2010. Another much appreciated feature of A.S.P.E.N.’s Clinical Nutrition Week is the pre-conference Research Workshop. The topic of next year’s workshop is “Current Advances in the Science and Application of Body Composition Measurement” (January 29, 2011 in Vancouver, BC, Canada). All the relevant information can be found by visiting www.nutritionweek.org Questions may be addressed to Paul Bowen, at Paulab@aspen.nutr.org See you in Vancouver next year.

The success of Clinical Nutrition does not stop. Last year we welcomed the outstanding raise of the impact factor of Clinical Nutrition to 3.203. But during 2009 the journal did even better and the 2009 impact factor has increased to 3.274, making Clinical Nutrition among the 14th best ranking journals in its category. This result is of particular importance since it has been achieved not counting the years of the publication of the ESPEN Guidelines. Thanks to the editorial office for their wonderful job, and to all the ESPEN members for their continuing support of the society’s journals.

Next September, the General Assembly will ratify an important change of ESPEN officers. By completing a very successful 4-year term, prof. Olle Ljungqvist will hand the chairmanship of the society to the new ESPEN Chairman elect, prof. Pierre Singer. Prof. Singer completed his MD and Gastroenterology board in France. He is also specialized in Intensive Care and has completed fellowships in transplantation and clinical nutrition. Prof. Singer is the Head of the Department of General Intensive Care of the Institute for Nutrition Research at the Rabin Medical Center, Bellinson Hospital in Petah Tiqva (Israel), and Chairman of the Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care at the Sackler School of Medicine (Tel Aviv University). Prof. Singer was the President of ESPEN in 2003, and ESPEN Treasurer for the term 2004-2008.

The European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People, which includes representatives from ESPEN, has recently published in Age and Ageing the consensus report on sarcopenia. This document, which is fully backed by ESPEN, is available as a free download by clicking here.

The 5th Intensive Introductory Course in Tracer Methodology in Metabolism will take place in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 12-13, 2010. Read about the programme, the faculty and how to apply for registration by reading the brochure.

The closing of the abstract submission system has been exceptionally postponed to April 12th, 09:00 CET. Please note that there will not be any telephone maintenance during the weekend!

Finally, malnutrition is on the political agenda. This week, members of the European Parliament’s Environment, Health and Food Safety committee voted on the report Action against Cancer: a European Partnership, urging for the third time the European Commission to take action on malnourished patients. The vote follows the recent invitation of both ESPEN and the European Nutrition for Health Alliance (ENHA) to be partners in the European Partnership for Action Against Cancer. Learn more by reading the press release by ENHA.