Background: Malnutrition is a major health problem, especially in hospitalized patients as it can be closely related to many post-operative complications. However, research on malnutrition and its effect on the outcome of general anesthesia have been largely neglected. Here we investigated malnutrition status on propofol consumption and recovery time among patients undergoing laparoscopic gastrointestinal surgery under general anesthesia. Methods: One hundred and one patients were recruited between January and June 2012 at Tongji Hospital and assigned into three groups according to Nutritional Risk Screening Tool 2002 score. A standard combined general anesthesia procedure was performed under regular monitoring. The dosage of propofol needed for induction, consumption during maintenance and recovery time were recorded. Results: When compared with normal nutritional status individuals, the propofol dosage at induction was significantly decreased about 4.3% in moderate malnutritional status patients (P < 0.01) and about 16.8% in severely malnutritional status patients (P < 0.01). The average consumption of propofol was also significantly lower in malnourished individuals; for moderate malnutritional, the decrease was about 20% (P < 0.01) while for the severely malnutritional, it was 30% (P < 0.01) when compared with normal nutritional status individuals. For the recovery time of propofol anesthesia, the patients with severe malnutritional status awoke average 6.8 min later than those normally nourished (P < 0.01), but those patients with moderate malnutrition status did not (P = 0.885). Conclusion: The present results indicate that the dosage and recovery time of propofol does change in malnourished individuals. Therefore, malnutrition may somehow affect the outcome of general anesthesia. (C) 2014 The Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica Foundation. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd