Originally published February 8 2006
Seniors in care facilities benefit from nutritional supplements
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A team of Australian and Scottish researchers have produced a study that indicates nutritional supplements improve the health of senior citizens in hospitals or care facilities.
Nutritional supplements bolster the health of malnourished seniors in hospitals or long-term care settings, but are of little benefit to the well-fed elderly living at home, researchers say.
"No evidence in our review suggested any improvement in mortality and morbidity for well-nourished (older) people who are given oral supplements of protein and energy," report a team of Australian and Scottish researchers in the Jan. 3 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The authors initially screened more than 34,000 English and non-English language studies that had focused on elderly patients living either for a short while in a hospital; in a long-term care facility, such as a nursing home; or at home in their community.
While unable to definitively comment on the survival rate of long-term care patients, the researchers found that supplements did, however, appear to improve the survival rate of the hospitalized elderly, and may have reduced the incidence of health complications among this group.
The researchers concluded that older people are an extremely heterogeneous group, and that supplements do not affect all seniors in the same way.
The researchers also suggested that a distinction be made between the benefits that supplements can confer on those who are both malnourished and hospitalized, and the negligible impact supplements seem to have on the health of well-nourished, at-home elders.
Judith Finkelstein, head of the Office of Nutrition at the National Institute on Aging, expressed little surprise at the findings.
And the kind of supplementation the study looked at might be helpful for certain people in certain categories, particularly those who are under-nourished.
But if they're healthy enough to be living in the community, and they're eating a healthy diet, it's clear from the study that they don't need to be taking supplementation."
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