Aiello Anna, Calabrò Anna, Zarcone Rosa, Caruso Calogero, Candore Giuseppina, Accardi Giulia
Laboratory of Immunopathology and Immunosenescence, Department of Biomedicine, Neuroscience and Advanced Diagnostics, University of Palermo, 90133 Palermo, Italy.
Nutrients. 2025 May 30;17(11):1873. doi: 10.3390/nu17111873.
Assessing nutrition-related health risks in older individuals is often overlooked in clinical practice due to the lack of appropriate methods of evaluation. While anthropometric measurements and body composition analyses are mainly used, these tools are not standardized for the oldest old and fail to account for age-related changes. This underscores the need for improved assessment techniques that accurately capture the progressive and non-linear shifts in nutritional status throughout the aging process. Accordingly, the primary aim of our paper is to identify the most effective tools to use for evaluating nutritional status in the oldest population. To address this gap, we conducted a cross-sectional study, investigating the nutritional status of a cohort of Sicilian individuals aged between 65 and 111, using methods commonly applied to adult and older adult populations. These included the BIoimpedance Analysis (BIA), the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) evaluation, and nutritional risk indices such as the COntrolling NUTritional Status (CONUT) score and Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI). Despite the oldest population being classified as "at risk" of malnutrition by the MNA or "cachetic" by BIA, our results indicated a "normal" or "low risk" of malnutrition when assessments were performed using tools (GNRI and CONUT) that were not reliant on body composition parameters. These findings align with clinical history assessments conducted during their recruitment. This pilot study highlights the need for future research aimed at developing standardized, multidimensional assessment models tailored to the heterogeneity of each age group, to improve risk stratification, clinical outcomes, and personalized nutritional care.
由于缺乏合适的评估方法，在临床实践中，对老年人营养相关健康风险的评估常常被忽视。虽然主要使用人体测量和身体成分分析，但这些工具并未针对最年长者进行标准化，也未能考虑到与年龄相关的变化。这凸显了改进评估技术的必要性，以便准确捕捉整个衰老过程中营养状况的渐进性和非线性变化。因此，我们论文的主要目的是确定用于评估最年长者营养状况的最有效工具。为了弥补这一差距，我们进行了一项横断面研究，使用通常应用于成年人和老年人群体的方法，调查了一组年龄在65岁至111岁之间的西西里人的营养状况。这些方法包括生物电阻抗分析（BIA）、微型营养评定（MNA）评估，以及营养风险指数，如控制营养状况（CONUT）评分和老年营养风险指数（GNRI）。尽管根据MNA，最年长者被归类为营养不良“风险”人群，或根据BIA被归类为“恶病质”人群，但我们的结果表明，当使用不依赖身体成分参数的工具（GNRI和CONUT）进行评估时，营养不良的风险为“正常”或“低风险”。这些发现与他们招募时进行的临床病史评估结果一致。这项初步研究强调了未来研究的必要性，即开发针对每个年龄组的异质性量身定制的标准化、多维度评估模型，以改善风险分层、临床结果和个性化营养护理。
