Aging and nutrition. Paving the way to better health

Sufficient caloric intake is important to maintain the balanced health status, especially during the period of aging, as aging and sickness share paths. Maintaining adequate nutritional balance is the best preventive measure to counteract the risk of malnutrition. There are several causes for malnut...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Molina-Molina Emilio, Garruti Gabriella, Shanmugam Harshitha, Di Palo Domenica Maria, Grattagliano Ignazio, Mastronuzzi Tecla, Portincasa Piero
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Sciendo 2020-06-01
Series:Romanian Journal of Internal Medicine
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.2478/rjim-2020-0005
Description
Summary:Sufficient caloric intake is important to maintain the balanced health status, especially during the period of aging, as aging and sickness share paths. Maintaining adequate nutritional balance is the best preventive measure to counteract the risk of malnutrition. There are several causes for malnutrition in elderly people, and some techniques such as anthropometric measurements, laboratory and clinical parameters could help to diagnose malnutrition in these patients. The use of a simple validated questionnaire called the ‘Mini Nutritional Assessment’ measures the nutritional status of elderly patients. In this review, we discuss about the malnutrition in elderly people with and without a known cause and we present some of nutritional intervention. There are promising strategies that help overcoming malnutrition.
ISSN:2501-062X