Is Ensure or Boost Healthier?

Ensure and Boost are nutrition supplements formulated to help you meet your dietary needs when eating enough solid food becomes difficult.

This is often relevant for children, older adults, or people at risk of malnutrition — such as those undergoing cancer treatment or those with eating or digestive disorders (1, 2, 3, 4).

Both Ensure and Boost present a broad selection of products in various flavors and formats, including ready-to-drink shakes, powders, puddings, and bars. Still, you might be curious whether one is superior nutritionally.

This piece examines the brands’ shakes and compares their nutritional profiles to help determine which may be a better fit for different needs.

Brands and product categories

About Ensure

Abbott Nutrition introduced its first ready-to-drink shake in 1973 under the Ensure name, which later became the label for their entire nutrition supplement line.

Today, Ensure offers more than 10 different shakes, all gluten-free. Many are certified kosher, halal, or both — meaning they meet Jewish and Islamic dietary rules, respectively (5).

Ensure’s shakes can be grouped into these categories:

1. Complete, balanced nutrition. Includes Ensure Original and Ensure Plus, designed to help maintain or increase body weight.
2. Advanced nutrition. Includes Ensure Enlive, formulated to support muscle, bone, heart, immune, and digestive health in one drink.
3. Targeted nutrition. Besides Ensure Light (a lower-calorie option), this group focuses on muscle building and includes Ensure Max Protein, Ensure High Protein, and Ensure Plant-Based Protein.
4. Specialty therapeutic nutrition. Contains Ensure Surgery, Ensure Pre-Surgery, and Ensure Compact, created to support recovery before and after surgical procedures.

About Boost

Boost is Nestlé’s nutrition supplement line, originally aimed at helping individuals meet nutritional needs after age 50.

Today, Boost offers a wide array of products — about a dozen ready-to-drink options to address various needs. Their shakes are often categorized as follows (6):

1. Diabetes. Two items designed to minimize blood sugar spikes: Boost Glucose Control and Boost Glucose Control High Protein.
2. High calorie. Boost Plus is the most calorie-dense shake, and it’s included in the brand’s oncology-focused offerings for people with cancer.
3. High protein. Includes Boost High Protein and Boost Max Nutritional Shake, aimed at supporting or preserving muscle mass.
4. Specialized Nutrition. Boost Original, Boost Mobility, Boost Men, and Boost Women target specific needs for adults, including those over 50.

Summary: Ensure and Boost are two nutrition supplement brands offering a wide selection of products intended to help with weight gain, muscle building, or targeted nutritional requirements.

Nutritional comparison

Several Ensure and Boost shakes are aimed at the same goals. The table below compares their nutritional content for an 8-ounce (236-mL) serving (5, 6):

Remember that sugar and fiber are components of total carbs — sugar is a simple carbohydrate while fiber is a complex one — so they’re listed separately.

Overall, products with similar aims are nutritionally comparable and often interchangeable.

For example, the Original shakes deliver almost the same protein, fiber, and fat; the main difference is that Boost has an extra 8 grams of carbs.

The Plus versions are similar too, though Ensure Plus contains 6 more grams of carbs than Boost Plus.

When comparing high-protein offerings, Ensure Max Protein and Boost Max are nearly identical. However, Boost High Protein contains noticeably more calories, carbs, and sugar than Ensure High Protein.

Looking at micronutrients, both brands supply more than 20 vitamins and minerals per serving, and many provide over 20% of the Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) — a relatively high share (7).

Still, you may encounter micronutrient differences of as much as 60% between certain products.

Micronutrients — vitamins and minerals — are vital for health, involved in processes like hormone synthesis and supporting proper growth and development (8).

Deficiencies in micronutrients can seriously impair health and increase disease risk. People with malnutrition are more likely to lack both macro- and micronutrients (1, 8).

Beyond the comparable items, each brand has shakes that address unique, specific needs, resulting in distinct nutrient profiles.

Examples include Ensure’s Surgery, Pre-Surgery, and Compact products, and Boost’s Glucose Control, Mobility, Men, and Women formulations.

Summary: Ensure and Boost offer many nutritionally similar shakes that can be used interchangeably. However, for targeted therapeutic needs their product lines and nutrient contents differ substantially.

Ensure and Boost benefits

Both brands create shakes to help you meet nutritional targets, but certain products are better suited to specific goals.

Best shake when it comes to protein

Protein is one of three macronutrients (with fats and carbs). While all three provide energy, proteins have specific roles: they are the body’s building blocks, essential for building and repairing muscle.

The RDI for protein is about 0.36 grams per pound (0.8 grams per kg) of body weight (9).

Research indicates that higher protein intakes — up to about 1 gram per pound (2.4 grams per kg) — can support muscle growth, weight loss, or both when paired with resistance exercise (9, 10).

Ensure and Boost shakes can boost daily protein by roughly 9–30 grams depending on the product.

If you want a sizable protein increase without raising carbs or fats much, Ensure Max Protein or Boost Max are likely the best picks.

Best shake for weight gain

To gain weight you must consume more calories than you burn — a daily calorie surplus.

For healthy weight gain, focus on increasing all macronutrients — carbs, proteins, and fats. Consuming large amounts of refined carbs and sugary foods will also add weight but may harm long-term health (11).

The extra calories you need depend on factors like age, sex, height, weight, and activity level.

You can use this calorie calculator for a rough estimate. For gaining about 1–2 pounds (0.5–1 kg) per week, aim for an additional ~500 calories per day.

Many Ensure and Boost shakes can help increase calorie and nutrient intake. Their Plus options and Ensure Enlive are among the most calorie- and nutrient-dense choices.

Note that consuming shakes in addition to meals or as snacks makes it easier to reach a calorie surplus than replacing meals with them — swapping a full meal for a 350-calorie shake may not produce the extra calories needed.

Best shake for diabetes

Diabetes involves chronically elevated blood glucose and affects about 1 in 4 people over 65 in the U.S. (12).

Boost offers two ready-to-drink shakes tailored to lower blood sugar responses: Boost Glucose Control and Boost Glucose Control High Protein.

Boost Glucose Control contains 16 grams of carbs (4 grams added sugar), while the High Protein version provides only 4 grams of carbs with no added sugars and a higher protein level (13, 14).

Ensure doesn’t market shakes specifically for diabetes, but Abbott produces a separate Glucerna line aimed at blood sugar management (15).

Best shake for older adults

Older adults face higher malnutrition risk due to factors like reduced appetite, chewing difficulties, dry mouth, and diminished sense of smell (16, 17).

A common approach is to offer small, palatable, nutrient- and protein-rich meals to improve nutritional status (16).

As products aimed at adults, both Ensure and Boost can help older people meet increased nutrition requirements.

Which is best depends on individual needs; for maximizing calories and nutrients, Ensure Enlive and Boost Plus are top candidates.

Best shake for children

Ensure and Boost are formulated for adults.

Abbott offers separate product lines for infants, kids, and teens — such as EleCare, Similac, and Pediasure (18).

Likewise, Nestlé has brands aimed at children, including Alfamino, Althéra, Alfaré, Garden of Life, Modulen, Peptamen, and Vitaflo (19).

Thus, look to those pediatric-specific lines when choosing a product for a child.

Summary: Ensure and Boost provide ready-to-drink shakes that can increase protein, aid weight gain, and assist with blood sugar management. They’re also useful for older adults, but they’re not intended for children.

Safety and precautions

Both Ensure and Boost can cause side effects like constipation, nausea, and gas, though many users report these symptoms subside with regular use.

Other reported effects include muscle cramps, irregular heartbeats, and shortness of breath.

If you take common anticoagulants like warfarin, it may be wise to avoid many products from either brand, since most provide over 20% of the RDI for vitamin K (7, 20).

High vitamin K intakes can interact with warfarin and reduce its effectiveness at preventing clots (20).

Most Ensure and Boost products are suitable for people with lactose intolerance, but they’re not appropriate for those with galactosemia, a genetic disorder that prevents conversion of galactose to glucose (21).

Both brands’ products are considered safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women.

Summary: Ensure and Boost shakes may lead to mild or more serious side effects. They’re generally fine for people with lactose intolerance and for pregnant or breastfeeding women, but not for those with galactosemia or people on blood thinners.

The bottom line

Ensure and Boost are nutrition supplement brands offering many ready-to-drink shakes to help adults meet their dietary needs.

Their products can assist with boosting protein intake, supporting healthy weight gain, and managing blood glucose. They’re also useful for older adults who struggle with solid foods.

However, shakes can cause a range of side effects, so consult your healthcare provider before adding them to your routine.

Shop for Ensure and Boost products online.

For tips on drinks that support overall health, see this juice immune system boost.