Association of nutritional risk and adverse medical outcomes across different medical inpatient populations

•Nutritional risk is substantial in acutely ill medical inpatients, with almost 30% of this population being at risk for malnutrition.•Nutritional risk is associated with adverse medical and functional outcomes with regard to mortality, hospital length of stay, impairments in activities of daily living and quality of life, and unplanned hospital readmissions.•Randomized trials are currently recruiting to evaluate the benefit of nutritional interventions such as counseling and therapy.