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Show Nutrition can slow aging What is good for a younger population popula-tion may not apply to the elderly. The current RDAs are only set up for persons 51 and older. There may . be significant differences between . J the RDAs for a 90-year-old versus a - : . 51 -year-old. Next week's column will look at the other end of the age spectrum-prenatal spectrum-prenatal nutrition. -i T 1 By DENNIS HINKAMP Consumer Information Writer Utah State University Although we usually think of nutrition and dietary requirements as being the same for everybody, this clearly isn't true. This week's column looks at the dietary requirements re-quirements for the aging, and next week's column looks at the special needs of prenatal nutrition. Although Utah has one of the youngest populations in the country due to our high birth rate, the country coun-try in general is aging. In 1900 only four percent of our population was over age 65. It is now about 1 1 percent per-cent and is expected to rise steadily to about 20 percent by 2030. Because we are living longer than ever before, there is beginning to be more focus on nutrition for the aging, according to Dr. Georgia Lauritzen. nutrition specialist in the Utah State University College of Family Life. One of the things we do know is that body composition changes with age. Even if you maintain your weight, your percent body fat is probably going up as you get older. Estimates are that active muscle tissue declines by three percent every 10 years after age 20, Lauritzen said. She said the good news is that this can be reversed. Even moderate exercise such as walking has been shown to increase muscle mass in people of all ages. Calcium loss is a related problem that we are fairly certain of, Lauritzen said. It is more of a problem prob-lem for women than men, but calcium loss in inevitable. The best thing you can do is to start with as much bone mass as possible. This means adequate consumption of calcium and weight bearing exercise exer-cise in younger years. Another area of change associated associ-ated with aging is reduced energy needs, she says. This usually accompanies ac-companies aging because activity levels and basal metabolic rates decrease at the same time. You actually ac-tually need fewer calories to maintain main-tain the same weight. Again, a great way to avoid this problem is to maintain or increase physical activity- Lauritzen said one of the hard-to-evaluate nutritional problems the elderly have is that they may be taking several medications. These may interfere with nutrient absorption absorp-tion or interact with foods in other ways. The body of research on elderly nutritional needs is not as extensive as for other age groups, she said. |