Bioactive Food as Dietary Interventions for the Aging Population

Many disease entities are found with higher frequency in the aged and increase nutritional stresses in adults. Chronic diseases, trauma, and infectious disease are among the factors that can alter intakes and/or requirements for various nutrients, and mature and aging bodies and physiological systems function quite distinctly from those of the young. Key systems that protect the individual, such as immune defenses, decline with age even under adequate nutrition. Increased tissue oxidants and decreased dietary antioxidants compound many health changes, and reduced physical activity and food consumption further accentuate changes. To some extent, treatment of these conditions is unique in the aged and represents major problems and costs to the health care system. Because cells in older people have altered nutritional needs and biochemical activities, including protein turnover, the aging adult offers a number of challenges including determining which bioactive foods and their extracts will promote health and how they affect cell structure and function. Lower levels of income in the later stages of life also substantially reduce the ability to maintain health via adequate consumption of foods and dietary supplements. Intuitively and scientifically, adequate diet and thus nutrition, education and dietary supplementation should improve the amount and quality of life in seniors. Bioactive Food as Dietary Interventions for the Aging Population presents scientific evidence of the impact bioactive foods can have in the prevention and mediation of age related diseases. Written by experts from around the world, this volume provides important information that will not only assist in treatment therapies, but inspire research and new work related to this area. Focuses on the role of bioactive foods in addressing chronic conditions associated with aging and senescence Important information for developing research on this rapidly growing population representing an increasingly significant financial burden Documents foods that can affect metabolic syndrome and ways the associated information could be used to understand other diseases, which share common etiological pathways.