Problems of optimal nutrition of elderly and senile patients with comorbidities against obesity

Abstract

Aim: To analyze the effectiveness of the main and low-calorie standard diets in elderly and senile patients with comorbidities against obesity. Materials and methods: Retrospective analysis of the inpatient data. Patients received the main or low-calorie standard diet at the Nutrition clinic. The analysis included clinical, laboratory, body composition (bioimpedance) parameters and the results of indirect calorimetry. The primary endpoint was anthropometric and body composition data. Statistical analysis was performed using Statistica 10.0 for Windows 6.1 (StatSoft Inc., USA). Results and discussion: 46 patients were included in the analysis. The average age was 65 years (95% CI 63.63-66.37 years). All patients had abdominal obesity. 44 patients (97.78%) had hypertension, 32 (71.11%) - osteoarthrosis, 28 (60.87%) - dyslipidemia, 16 (35.56%) - diabetes mellitus; and coronary artery disease was detected in 9 patients (20%). Diet therapy caused a statistically significant decrease in body weight, waist and hip circumferences, fat mass, lean mass, total body fluid and muscle mass (in particular, 25.35% weight loss was due to muscle mass loss), as well as the improvement of lipid profile. Conclusion. Dietary interventions, such as main and low-calorie standard diets, routinely used for inpatient settings allow us to reduce body weight and improve anthropometric parameters in elderly and senile obese patients with comorbidities, which is accompanied by positive changes in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism even in a short-term follow-up. However, the protein content for standard diets is insufficient for this target group and leads to the loss of both fat and muscle mass.