Olle Ljungqvist is a professor of Surgery at Örebro University and Karolinska
Institutet Sweden

He co-founded the ERAS® Society and served as the Chairman of its Executive Committee until July 2022. He invented the idea of preoperative oral carbohydrates instead of fasting before elective surgery and has published more than 300 original papers, book chapters and reviews on surgical nutrition, surgical metabolism, surgical stress, and ERAS.

Olle Ljungqvist MD, PhD received his medical degree and obtained his PhD on glucose metabolism in hemorrhage at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. He completed his residency and held several clinical positions in gastrointestinal surgery at the Karolinska Hospital and was appointed Professor of Surgery Nutrition and Metabolism in 2005 at the Karolinska Insitutet. He chaired the Center for Gastrointestinal Disease at Ersta hospital 1999-2008, Stockholm before taking up his current position as Professor of Surgery at Örebro University, Sweden in 2009. Dr Ljungqvist has served as Chair of the European Society for Clinical Nutrition (ESPEN), the International Association for Surgical Metabolism and Nutrition (IASMEN) as part of the International Surgical Society. He co-founded the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS^®) Society 2010 and served as the Executive Chairman until 2022. The ERAS® Society has initiated and runs a world wide implementation program of evidence based perioperative care reaching 26 countries on every continent. This program has shown to reduce complications and hospital stay by 30-50%, is associated with a 40% improved five year survival and substantial cost savings in major colorectal cancer surgery. Olle Ljungqvist also proposed the use of preoperative carbohydrates instead of overnight fasting for elective surgery, a treatment that is currently guideline recommend world-wide. His research interests are surgical stress, metabolism and nutrition and outcomes focusing on ERAS, publishing more than 200 original contributions, international guidelines, book chapters and reviews. He has co-edited several international textbooks on Clinical Nutrition and on ERAS. He is invited to deliver about 20 international main lectures worldwide annually. Honorary member of ESPEN 2017, Tedx speaker 2017.