Nutrition After 50
The official figure has not changed since the 1980s, but the research underneath it has. Here is what the evidence supports now, and what the supplement aisle would rather you believed.
Nutrition After 50
Most of the supplement aisle is selling insurance against a risk you do not have. Three or four have a defensible case in older adults, and one of them has genuinely changed with age.
Nutrition After 50
Almost everyone eats less fibre than they should, and the consequences compound with age. But the commonest cause of constipation in older adults is not the diet at all.
Living Well
Appetite falls with age for reasons that are physiological as much as emotional. The combination of eating alone and cooking for one is one of the more reliable routes into undernutrition.
Nutrition After 50
The thirst mechanism blunts with age, kidneys concentrate urine less well, and several common medications increase losses. Dehydration is one of the more frequent avoidable causes of hospital admission.
Nutrition After 50
Cutting salt lowers blood pressure on average, and the average conceals a great deal. Salt sensitivity rises with age, which makes this one of the few dietary rules that genuinely gets more relevant.
Nutrition After 50
The obesity paradox in older adults is real enough to complicate the advice. Weight loss that takes muscle with it is harmful, and most weight loss does exactly that unless it is designed not to.
Living Well
The move is far easier at seventy than at eighty-two, and the features that matter are not the ones estate agents advertise. Most people decide during a crisis, which is the worst time to choose.
Nutrition After 50
Body composition, liver metabolism and medication all change how alcohol behaves. The result is that a lifelong habit can become a problem without the amount changing at all.
Living Well
Spousal carers have measurably worse health outcomes than matched non-carers, and the effect is concentrated in those who report strain. Most of the protective measures are refused as luxuries.
Nutrition After 50
It affects roughly one in ten people over 65 and a quarter of those over 85. Being told to take iron without anyone establishing why is one of the more common missed opportunities in primary care.
Preventive Care
It is the most common gastrointestinal complaint in older adults, a frequent cause of hospital admission, and one of the more common reasons a person with dementia becomes suddenly agitated.
Nutrition After 50
It has more randomised evidence behind it than any other dietary pattern, one landmark trial that had to be retracted and republished, and a set of claims that outran the data.
Nutrition After 50
The NOVA classification puts wholemeal bread and a fizzy drink in the same box, which is either its greatest weakness or the point of it, depending who you ask.
Nutrition After 50
Most of what we call taste is smell, and olfactory function declines substantially from around 60. The consequences run from over-salting to undernutrition to missing a gas leak.
Living Well
The design principles are well established and cost very little. Most of them work by reducing the demand on memory and judgement rather than by adding equipment.
Preventive Care
Some interactions are dangerous and well known. Others simply stop a drug working, produce no symptoms, and lead to a dose increase that should not have been needed.
