Malabsorption: common causes and their practical diagnosis.

Malabsorption may present as non-specific ill health and malnutrition in the elderly. Outside major medical centers, however, investigation is often thought to be difficult and unrewarding, and screening tests unreliable. Therefore, a direct approach is suggested to identify treatable small bowel disease in those elderly patients with a clinical possibility of malabsorption. It is based on the use of plain abdominal x-ray, endoscopy with duodenal biopsy, and small bowel meal.