目的 总结近年来 β- 羟基 -β- 甲基丁酸（HMB）在临床的应用效果，提高 HMB 临床应用的关注度。 方法 通过 电子在线数据库，使用关键词 HMB 进行搜索，经过筛选后，进行比较、总结。 结果 HMB 是必需氨基酸亮氨酸的一种代 谢中间产物。大量研究表明 HMB 具有预防肌肉减少，增加肌肉量的作用，在运动和健美方面得到广泛应用。而许多疾病， 如严重创伤、肿瘤、艾滋病、老年人肌肉萎缩等都会导致肌肉的流失，所以近年来 HMB 也被应用于临床上对肌肉消耗的治疗。 结论 尽管有部分文章称 HMB 未表现出治疗效果，但大部分文献表明 HMB 可以增加患者瘦体重，预防肌肉减少，并减少 不良预后的风险。这可能和 HMB 复杂的代谢机制相关。

Objective To review recent clinical literatures on the effectiveness of HMB supplementation in pathological conditions. Methods Utilizing electronic online database search using the keyword HMB, then screened, compared and summarized the results of HMB supplementation. Results β-hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate is a metabolite of the essential amino acid leucine. Plenty of researches show that HMB may have the effect in preventing muscle wasting and increasing muscle mass, and has been widely used in sports and body building. Many diseases, such as severe trauma, cancer, AIDS, the elderly muscle atrophy may lead to muscle wasting. Therefore, HMB is also used in clinical treatment for muscle wasting in the past few years. Conclusions Although there are discrepancies among the results of different studies, HMB supplementation has been shown its increase effect on lean body mass in the most of literatures. Consequently, HMB supplementation attenuates muscle wasting and reduces the risk of poor prognosis. It may due to the complex metabolism of HMB.