Proper Nutrition among Elderly

Aging is a natural and undeniable phenomenon of life, which starts gradually under the impact of several factors, with one of these facts being nutrition.

Proper nutrition plays an important role in maintaining health and preventing illnesses.

Therefore, having knowledge of the needs of the elderly and regulation of their food-related programs is highly important.

ENERGY: Energy is important for maintaining the metabolic stages of the cell, maintenance of internal balance, saving body’s protein and safeguarding the activity of the muscles. Irrespective of this issue, the need for protein increases, which is recommended to be between 15% to 20% of the total amount of calories needed. For this purpose, placing pure meat, fish, eggs, skimmed milk and grains in the diet is very essential.

FAT: With aging and declining of protein, the amount of fat in the body increases and the ground is paved for illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular illnesses, kidney and liver failure. Lowering fat consume is the best way of declining the amount of energy without lowering the rich nutrition from it. It is recommended that the elderly cut on the total amount of calories, which includes simple and complex sugars. These substances aren’t properly metabolized and tolerance for glucose declines in senior citizens. Lowering of blood sugar level in the elderly might not be accompanied with sweating, high rate of heart-beat and fainting, and might only appear as dizziness.

FIBERS: Fibers soluble in water, abundant in carrots, beans, oranges are a great source of fiber which form a gelatin material and lower the blood sugar level.

LIQUIDS: Liquids are crucial for the elderly and usually 6-8 glasses of water are recommended per day for the elderly.

Many of the elderly show symptoms such as: dryness of lips, hollow eyes, fever, and low-blood pressure, decline of urination level, vomiting and dizziness.

Minerals, such as calcium, zinc and iron are essential for the elderly. Shortage of iron can result in Anemia, leading to infection, inflammation of joints, cancer and kidney failure. Meat, chicken, eggs, fish and liver are immense sources of iron to maintain their need of iron which is 10 mg per day.

Elderly also require 15 mg of zinc for men and 12 mg of zinc for women. The best foods for providing zinc are meat, chicken, fish, egg, and liver.