Unravelling Health – Nutrition as a common thread in health maintenance and decline in older age

Summary

This thesis studied the role of nutrition on health of older people with hip fractures and older people in general. Hip fracture patients often do not recover fully, but good quality research about what they eat during recovery, and if malnutrition develops, is scarce. Hip fracture patients who did not live in institutions and had no dementia often developed a high risk of malnutrition in the three months after hip fracture, lost a lot of weight, and became more dependent. A second study showed that intake of energy, protein and other nutrients was too low during recovery. In various other older adults we studied the effects of particular diets, of which results are preliminary. In short, developing malnutrition after a hip fracture should be prevented and monitored better. Moreover, there is a need for biomarkers that can help us understand health effects of diets in people who are ageing.