The focus on foods for special medical purposes and food supplements in age-related disorders

Abstract

The number of people over 60 years of age is increasing worldwide, representing a population of one billion in 2019, which is predicted to nearly double by 2050. In old age, people are more prone to the development of chronic disorders, mainly due to altered body responses to intracellular and extracellular stresses, where overactive oxidative stress and inflammatory processes initiate and stimulate degenerative processes in the body, resulting in metabolic diseases, loss of muscle strength, bone and joint disorders, neurodegenerative disorders, cardiovascular pathologies, and carcinogenesis. Moreover, treatment of patients of advanced age is more complex, due to the simultaneous involvement of multiple disease mechanisms, and the nonlinear association between disease risk factors and their disease endpoints. Most people in their old age are receiving treatment with two or more pharmacological drugs for the management of old age ailments, but on other hand, this increases the occurrence of adverse events in this population, attributed to their pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic alterations. One of the better approaches is primary prevention that may postpone the onset of morbidity with an improvement in general quality of life. The use of food supplements by old aged subjects is proportionally increasing for this purpose. This short commentary is focused on the basis of the use of foods for special medical purposes, and food supplements in the prevention of age-related disorders.