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We recorded anthropometric and laboratory data in 98 sick old people on admission to a high-dependency unit. The measurement of triceps skinfold thickness and arm muscle area was feasible even in very ill people, while measurement of the body mass index was difficult and sometimes unreliable. Anthropometric measurements indicated that our study group was better nourished than a local population, with just 3 subjects (3%) being fat depleted and a further 4 (5%) being protein depleted. Serum albumin was the laboratory variable that correlated best with anthropometric parameters. However, it was low in 47% of the subjects, indicating that its lower reference value needs to be redefined in this select group.

Thyroid function was assessed by measurement of free thyroid hormones and thyrotrophin (TSH) in 78 acutely ill elderly patients and in a control group without acute illness. Abnormal results with any test were more frequently found in the acutely ill group than in controls. In particular, abnormal TSH values were found in 40% of the acutely ill group and in only 8% of controls (p less than 0.001). Seven acutely ill subjects had very low TSH levels (less than 0.04 mU/l) and a blunted response to thyroid-releasing hormone (TRH). With few exceptions these abnormalities could not be attributed to thyroid disease. This suggests that pituitary TSH secretion can be impaired in euthyroid sick old people. High sensitivity TSH assays may therefore be inappropriate as first-line tests of thyroid function, at least in this select group.

In this work we perform an observational data analysis on the f (R, T) gravity with the aim of constraining the parameter space of the model. Five different models are considered and the 30 point z − H(z) cosmic chronometer data is used in our analysis. The χ 2 statistic is formulated as a difference between the theoretical and the observed values of H(z) for different values of redshift z. Efforts have been made to minimize the statistic in order to get the best fit values for the free parameters models. We have also used some standard distance measurement parameters like BAO and CMB peaks along with the data for achieving better constraints on the parameter space. We have used the publicly available CosmoMC code for obtaining the bounds for the free parameters of the models in different confidence intervals like 68%, 95%, 99%. 1D distributions and 2D joint confidence contours for various confidence levels mentioned above are generated for the free parameters using the CosmoMC code. Finally our models have been compared with the standard ΛCDM model by some statistical techniques using the observational data and the support for the models from the data is probed