Malnutrition in the elderly: A narrative review
Open accessAbstract
The focus of nutrition is often on healthy diets and exercise to minimise the risk of developing lifestyle diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. However, during the shift into older years often the nutrition priorities change towards meeting increased nutrient needs with less energy requirements, and minimising lean muscle loss. There are several causes of general malnutrition in the elderly that lead to depletion of muscle including starvation (protein-energy malnutrition), sarcopenia and cachexia. The prevalence of protein-energy malnutrition increases with age and the number of comorbidities. A range of simple and validated screening tools can be used to identify malnutrition in older adults, e.g. MST, MNA-SF and 'MUST'. Older adults should be screened for nutritional issues at diagnosis, on admission to hospitals or care homes and during follow up at outpatient or General Practitioner clinics, at regular intervals depending on clinical status. Early identification and treatment of nutrition problems can lead to improved outcomes and better quality of life.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In advanced age and in acute and chronic illness, nutritional problems are widespread, and reduced dietary intake combined with catabolic disease rapidly leads to malnutrition.
“Particularly in advanced age and in the case of acute and chronic illness, nutritional problems are widespread, and a reduced dietary intake in combination with the effects of catabolic disease rapidly leads to malnutrition (1,2).”
From ESPEN practical guideline: Clinical nutrition and hydration in geriatrics (2022) · cites this paper as [2]
Malnutrition is related to poor outcomes including increased rates of infections, length of hospital stay, duration of convalescence after acute illness, and mortality risk.
“Malnutrition is related to poor outcome, e.g.increased rates of infections, length of hospital stay, duration of convalescence after acute illness as well as mortality risk (2)”
From ESPEN practical guideline: Clinical nutrition and hydration in geriatrics (2022) · cites this paper as [2]
Cites
Fielding, R. A., Vellas, B., Evans, W. J., Bhasin, S., Morley, J. E., Newman, A. B., Abellan van Kan, G., Andrieu, S., Bauer, J., Breuille, D., et al. (2011) · Journal of the American Medical Directors Association · doi:10.1016/j.jamda.2011.01.003 · Cited by 3,256 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Results of recent attempts to provide, and agree upon, definitions and diagnostic criteria for sarcopenia indicate that it is a progressive loss of muscle mass that occurs with normal ageing although this area is still under investigation [8-10].”
Rubenstein, L. Z., Harker, J. O., Salva, A., Guigoz, Y., & Vellas, B. (2001) · The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences · doi:10.1093/gerona/56.6.m366 · Cited by 2,751 · see citing works
Muscaritoli, M., Anker, S. D., Argilés, J., Aversa, Z., Bauer, J. M., Biolo, G., Boirie, Y., Bosaeus, I., Cederholm, T., Costelli, P., et al. (2010) · Clinical Nutrition · doi:10.1016/j.clnu.2009.12.004 · Cited by 1,732 · see citing works
Protein and energy supplementation in elderly people at risk from malnutrition
Milne, A. C., Potter, J., Vivanti, A., & Avenell, A. (2009) · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · doi:10.1002/14651858.cd003288.pub3 · Cited by 849 · see citing works
Thomas, D. R. (2007) · Clinical Nutrition · doi:10.1016/j.clnu.2007.03.008 · Cited by 521 · see citing works
Feldblum, I., German, L., Castel, H., Harman‐Boehm, I., & Shahar, D. R. (2011) · Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.2010.03174.x · Cited by 127 · see citing works
Neelemaat, F., Bosmans, J. E., Thijs, A., Seidell, J. C., & van Bokhorst-de van der Schueren, M. A. E. (2012) · Clinical Nutrition · doi:10.1016/j.clnu.2011.10.009 · Cited by 84 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
ESPEN practical guideline: Clinical nutrition and hydration in geriatrics
Volkert, D., Beck, A. M., Cederholm, T., Cruz-Jentoft, A., Hooper, L., Kiesswetter, E., Maggio, M., Raynaud-Simon, A., Sieber, C., Sobotka, L., et al. (2022) · Clinical Nutrition · doi:10.1016/j.clnu.2022.01.024 · Cited by 516 · see citing works
Nutritional considerations for healthy aging and reduction in age-related chronic disease
Shlisky, J., Bloom, D. E., Beaudreault, A. R., Tucker, K. L., Keller, H. H., Freund-Levi, Y., Fielding, R. A., Cheng, F. W., Jensen, G. L., Wu, D., et al. (2017) · Advances in Nutrition · doi:10.3945/an.116.013474 · Cited by 462 · see citing works
Protein intake and muscle function in older adults
Deer, R. R., & Volpi, E. (2015) · Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care · doi:10.1097/mco.0000000000000162 · Cited by 206 · see citing works
The Role of Nutrition in COVID-19 Susceptibility and Severity of Disease: A Systematic Review
James, P. T., Ali, Z., Armitage, A. E., Bonell, A., Cerami, C., Drakesmith, H., Jobe, M., Jones, K. S., Liew, Z., Moore, S. E., et al. (2021) · The Journal of Nutrition · doi:10.1093/jn/nxab059 · Cited by 147 · see citing works
Malafarina, V., Uriz-Otano, F., Malafarina, C., Martinez, J. A., & Zulet, M. A. (2017) · Maturitas · doi:10.1016/j.maturitas.2017.04.010 · Cited by 131 · see citing works
Better prepare for the next one. Lifestyle lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic
Galli, F., Reglero, G., Bartolini, D., & Visioli, F. (2020) · PharmaNutrition · doi:10.1016/j.phanu.2020.100193 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
Marshall, S., Agarwal, E., Young, A., & Isenring, E. (2017) · Maturitas · doi:10.1016/j.maturitas.2017.01.004 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Self-citationThe Crossroads of Aging: An Intersection of Malnutrition, Frailty, and Sarcopenia
Severin, R., Berner, P. M., Miller, K. L., & Mey, J. (2019) · Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation · doi:10.1097/tgr.0000000000000218 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
- Authors
- Agarwal, E., Miller, M., Yaxley, A., & Isenring, E.
- Affiliations
- Queensland University of Technology (AU)
- Flinders University (AU)
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Isenring, E.
- Venue
- Maturitas
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-12
- Volume
- 76
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 296-302
- ISSN
- 0378-5122 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2065492922
- Cited by
- 510
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 28 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 41 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 70 · 2021: 65 · 2020: 60 · 2019: 45 · 2018: 43 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 27 · 2015: 28 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 2.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- eprints.qut.edu.au
- Licence
- Locations
- Maturitas (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- QUT ePrints (Queensland University of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Nutrition and Health in Aging
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Body Composition Measurement Techniques
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Clinical Nutrition and Gastroenterology
- Keywords
- malnutrition, older adults, protein-energy malnutrition, sarcopenia, cachexia, muscle mass loss, nutritional screening, must, comorbidities, nutritional assessment
- MeSH terms
- Aged, Humans, Nutritional Requirements, Nutritional Status, Protein-Energy Malnutrition, Geriatric Assessment, Nutrition Assessment
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
