Handbook of Nutrition in the Aged PDF

Preface

Nutrient requirements for optimum health and function of aging physiological systems often are quite distinct from those required for young ones. Recognition and understanding of the special nutrition problems of the aged are being intensively researched and tested, especially due to the increases in the elderly in the general population. In developed countries, economic restrictions and physical inactivity during aging can significantly reduce food intakes, contributing to nutritional stresses and needs. Many disease entities and cancers are found with higher frequency in the aged. Cancer, trauma, or infectious disease can alter intakes or requirements for various nutrients. Thus, specific foods and nutritional supplementation may be helpful in treatment of aged adults, including cancer patients.

Many adults and elderly are using foods and nutrients well above the recommended daily allowance, which may not always be needed for optimal health. Thus, dietary alcohol and high calorie intakes associated with causation and exacerbation of alcoholism or diabetes, respectively, will form a section of health promotion in seniors. To some extent, treatment of these conditions with diet or nutritional supplements is a unique problem in the aged.

The major objective of this book is to review in detail health problems occurring with significant frequency in aging adults and nutritional therapies to overcome them. The effects of the aging processes, changes in social status, and financial conditions significantly affect the approaches to treatment and study of nutritional and health problem in the aging adult and the elderly. In summary, to understand their health problems, increasing numbers of older adults and elderly in the population require detailed study and directed research using nutritional therapies.

This book, the 4th edition, was created by enhancing and updating key chapters by the authors who wrote them in the 3rd edition. Some new topics and chapters are included:

• Nutrition and Nutritional Needs

• Undernutrition

• Mechanistic Studies of Nutrition in the Aged

• Nutritional Therapies and Supplementation