Anorexia is a frequent condition in older Italians, particularly those hospitalized, with important consequences in the nutritional and functional status. The analysis of dietary components and its quality along with the frequency of intake of single food groups may be useful to plan intervention strategies aiming to improve the nutritional and health status of older adults with anorexia. An early detection of anorexia followed by an adequate intervention in older hospitalized patients to avoid further worsening of clinical and functional status is warranted.

consequences of anorexia can be extremely serious and deeply affect both patient's mobility, mortality and quality of life. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to perform a special evaluation of the nutritional risk, to constantly evaluate the nutritional status and feeding intake of older patients, to identify and treat the underlying disease when possible, to institute environmental and behavioural modifications, to organise staff better in order to produce higher quality feeding assistance during mealtimes, to plan early nutrition rehabilitation and nutritional education programs for caregivers. There is also the necessity to develop diagnostic procedures easy to perform, able to identify the pathogenesis of anorexia and, therefore, treatment strategies exactly fitting the patients' needs.

No abstract

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of MUFA vs PUFA enriched diets on the plasma and LDL lipid profile and antioxidant contents in mild hypercholesterolemic and triglyceridemic subjects. The study was divided in two consecutive diet periods. Two groups of 11 dyslipidemic patients each (type IIb and type IV) were recruited and during the first period (lasting four weeks) received a linoleic rich diet while during the following four weeks took an oleate rich diet. Both groups showed no significant changes in cholesterol and TG concentration either in plasma or in LDL. Coenzyme Q10 and vitamin E were also unaffected by the dietary treatments. LDL proneness to be oxidatively modified increased after dietary PUFA administration and markedly decreased following the virgin olive oil enriched diet. In fact, LDL from hypertrigliceridemic subjects on a oleate-enriched diet displayed a 26% (p < 0.05) longer lag-phase in conjugated dienes generation than during linoleate-enriched diet and at recruitment. In hypercholesterolemic subjects similar results were obtained: the lag-phase was 28% longer after MUFA diet that after PUFA diet. No differences were found in the maximum propagation rate and maximum concentration of conjugated dienes among dietary periods and at recruitment. Since we found that the vit. E and CoQ10 levels in plasma and in LDL particles remained unchanged during the course of the study, we may conclude that LDL proneness to undergo oxidative modifications is mainly the result of compositional change due to the enrichment from the different diets of the relative fats.

The aim of our study was to directly compare the metabolic effect of monounsaturated fatty acid rich oils and polyunsaturated fatty acid rich oils on the plasma lipid pattern of moderately hypercholesterolaemic subjects under controlled isocaloric condition. After a 30-day run-in diet, 44 healthy Caucasian subjects with moderate hypercholesterolaemia were randomly assigned to one of four different isocaloric diets, differing only regarding the oil used (corn oil, corn oil supplemented with vitamin E, extra-virgin olive oil or different self-selected oils), for 45 days. At the end of the study, when compared to the baseline value, low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterolaemia was significantly lower only in patients taking corn oil (-13.9%; 95%CI -5.9 to -20.1; p = 0.02) or corn oil with added vitamin E (-19.1%; 95%CI -6.9 to -24.1; p = 0.03). Differences in plasma high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol and triglyceride levels from baseline levels and between the four diets did not reach statistical significance.