Nutrition in the Elderly

From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s increase in life expectation at birth was recorded in almost all member states of the World Health Organization.

In developed countries long life is a virtual certainty and very long life increasingly probable.

Nutrition has been a key determinant of these gains in health and it now takes on special importance for the well-being of elderly people who are surviving in greater and greater numbers, especially in the developing world.

This book appears at a time when the discipline of nutrition science is just beginning to extend the search for new knowledge to older age groups.

The text explores the relationship between nutrition and immunology and highlights the need both for studies of nutritional risk factors, and for adapting existing field survey techniques to encompass the special needs of elderly people.

The World Health Organization has a policy of producing authoritative guides on different aspects of ageing for use in medical school and in schools of other health sciences around the world.

This publication is one of the guides in this series.