[Health status indicators in elderly persons receiving various amounts of carbohydrates in their food]

Abstract

The authors studied factual nutrition and the health status in 272 practically healthy elderly persons aged 60 to 74 years. Depending on the content of carbohydrates in the food, they were divided into 2 groups. The first group comprised persons, in whose diets the carbohydrate component was either equal to 45% of the average daily caloric value or was lower; the second group comprised test subjects with this component amounting to 60% and even higher. Analysis of the chemical composition of the diets of the group 2 test subjects demonstrated that the basic nutritive substances were unbalanced, and protein, vitamins and mineral elements were deficient. A close correlation was found between the carbohydrate content of the diet, which determined to a considerable degree the magnitude of its caloric value, and the health status of the elderly persons. Excess carbohydrates in the diet and its caloricity exerted an unfavourable effect on the general clinical condition, body weight, function of the cardiovascular system, the degree of changes in both lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, and promoted the development of more remarkable clinical manifestations of the atherosclerotic process in the elderly persons.