We hypothesized that malnutrition status affects recovery of bowel function by reduceing the synthesis of gut hormones, impairing enterocyte regeneration, and causing anastomosis swelling or edema. Hypoprealbumin delayed the time to start feeding (5 days) compared with the normal prealbumin (3.6 days) group and the hypoalbumin group (4.8 day), but the differences do not reach statistical significance.