Do you know? Open the door┋How can the elderly gain muscle and stay healthy? The dietary guidelines recommend eating this way

Contributor: Li Caihong, Urumqi First People's Hospital, Chief Technician (Nutrition), member of the Chinese Nutrition Society, and Secretary of the Youth Committee of the Xinjiang Nutrition Society.

Reviewer: Wang Guiling, executive director of the Xinjiang Nutrition Society, chief physician of the Clinical Nutrition Department of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University, health science expert of the Autonomous Region Health Commission, and member of the expert lecturer group of Xinjiang "Science Lecture Hall".

The energy demand of the elderly decreases with age, but the demand for most nutrients does not decrease. On the contrary, the demand for some important nutrients such as protein and calcium increases. However, the decline in taste, smell, and vision in the elderly may lead to lack of appetite, rigid food choices, and easy to cause insufficient intake of protein and micronutrients. The human body begins to lose muscle mass at around 40 years old, and the rate of muscle loss accelerates significantly after the age of 70. Reasonable nutrition is a key way to delay muscle attenuation in the elderly. Studies have shown that antioxidant nutrients such as fatty acids, vitamin D, vitamin C, vitamin E, carotenoids, and selenium are beneficial for delaying muscle attenuation.

Tips:

Sarcopenia, also known as sarcopenia, is a disease associated with aging in which the body loses skeletal muscle mass, strength and function, often leading to decreased physical fitness and reduced quality of life. Elderly people with sarcopenia have difficulty standing, walk slowly and are prone to falling, which increases the risk of adverse events such as fractures and death.

How to increase muscle mass and maintain health, so that the elderly can have a better quality of life and more vitality? How to reduce the probability of elderly people being bedridden due to muscle loss? The Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022) puts forward the following preventive suggestions for the elderly in delaying muscle attenuation:

【Core Recommendation】

1. Rich food variety: ensure sufficient animal food and eat soy products regularly.

2. Maintain a good appetite: Encourage eating together and enjoying the delicious food.

3. Active outdoor activities: delay muscle loss and maintain a suitable weight.

4. Regular health check-ups: assess nutritional status and prevent nutritional deficiencies.

Let’s take a deeper look at how these core recommendations can help older adults gain muscle and maintain health.

1. How to Eat a Reasonable Diet and Enrich Food Variety

Let's talk about "eating" first! We need to learn to be like young people, fully understand the importance of rich food variety, pay attention to balanced nutrition, and don't just focus on those high-sugar, high-fat delicacies. Protein is the "gas station" of muscles, and it must be "full of energy" to have the strength to jump. You can start from the following aspects:

1. Diversified varieties: In addition to staple foods, it also includes various grains such as millet, corn, buckwheat, oats, etc.; potatoes and sweet potatoes can also be used as staple foods.

2. Diversify vegetables: Try to have vegetables at every meal. Different varieties of vegetables contain different nutrients. Try to eat different kinds of vegetables, such as rapeseed, greens, spinach, purple cabbage, etc. Different vegetables can also be eaten together. For example, stir-fried potatoes can be paired with green and red peppers, or with lettuce and carrots. In this way, you can eat a variety of vegetables in one meal, which not only enriches the taste and increases appetite, but also allows you to take in different nutrients.

3. Fruit diversity: Choose different types of fruits as much as possible, such as oranges, apples, peaches, pears, strawberries, grapes, bananas, grapefruits, etc. Eat smaller amounts of each and a wider variety.

4. Eat animal food in rotation: including fish, shrimp, shellfish and other aquatic products, livestock and poultry meat and some animal offal foods. Try to eat pork, mutton, beef and other livestock meat, chicken, duck and other poultry meat, fish, shrimp and eggs in rotation. Eat 40-50g of fish and shrimp, 40-50g of livestock and poultry, and 40-50g of eggs every day. When choosing fish, it is recommended that the elderly eat as much fish belly (fish belly) as possible. The meat in this part is softer, which is easier for the elderly to digest and absorb. The fish bones are more obvious and easy to remove, which reduces the risk of being stuck by the fish bones and is relatively safe to eat.

5. Diversify soy foods: Eat different forms of soy products such as tofu, dried tofu, bean curd skin, tofu brain, soybean sprouts and soy milk. An average of 15g of soybeans per day is recommended.

6. Drink milk every day: It is recommended that each person drink 300-400g of fresh milk or dairy products with equivalent protein (equivalent to 30-36g of milk powder) every day. If you are lactose intolerant, you can consider drinking low-lactose milk or yogurt. Common milk includes fresh milk and dairy products such as cow's milk and goat's milk. Fresh milk can be processed into various dairy products, such as milk powder, yogurt, cheese, condensed milk, etc. If conditions permit, the elderly can choose different types of dairy products. The protein, fat, calcium, vitamin A, and riboflavin content of cheese is 7-8 times that of fresh milk, which is more suitable for the elderly with small appetite.

2. How to help the elderly maintain a good appetite

Elderly people who suffer from chronic diseases or take medications are more likely to suffer from loss of appetite, which is manifested by fewer meals, less food intake, and a single variety of food. These situations can easily lead to malnutrition. Therefore, in order to maintain a good appetite, active measures should be taken to prevent:

1. Participate in more group activities: The elderly should be encouraged to actively participate in group activities, communicate with others to eliminate boredom, and maintain an optimistic attitude.

2. Increase physical activity: Under the premise of ensuring safety, appropriately increase the physical activity of the elderly to enhance the body's demand for nutrition and thus increase the desire to eat.

3. Enrich cooking methods: Use different cooking methods such as boiling, stewing, frying, steaming, mixing, and sautéing. By purchasing fresh ingredients, matching colors, and using condiments rationally, you can comprehensively improve the color, aroma, and taste of food and enhance its appeal.

4. Encourage eating together: The whole family should be actively encouraged to eat together at mealtimes. As the saying goes, "food tastes better when there are more people", so that the elderly can better enjoy the deliciousness of food.

5. Care and guidance: Family members and friends should guide the elderly to participate in the process of food selection, preparation, tasting and commenting, help them regard daily meals as an important part of their lives, and promote their physical and mental health. At the same time, help them to re-recognize the beauty of life and feel the care and support of their family, so as to maintain a good mental state.

3. Should the elderly take it easy when exercising?

When it comes to exercise, you don’t have to go to the gym to lift weights. We older people need to take it easy and choose some light exercise that suits us to get our muscles moving. You can take the following measures:

1. Actively participate in various physical activities, especially outdoor sports. Outdoor sports in the sun help the body synthesize vitamin D, thereby delaying the development of muscle attenuation. The elderly should choose appropriate exercise methods according to their physiological characteristics and health conditions, such as walking, brisk walking, Tai Chi, etc. These exercises can enhance cardiopulmonary function, improve body flexibility, and effectively prevent fractures and falls. When arranging exercise load, be sure to do it within your ability to avoid sports injuries caused by excessive intensity. Appropriate exercise load should be based on normal sleep, good appetite, high spirits, and a happy mood after exercise. Objectively, the intensity of exercise can be measured by counting the heart rate, usually with 170-age (years) as the target heart rate.

2. Reduce the time spent in sedentary activities. Maintaining the same posture for a long time may cause local muscle strain, decreased cardiopulmonary function and other diseases, and is also not good for physical health. The elderly should try to avoid sitting for long periods of time, reduce the time spent in sedentary activities such as watching TV and using mobile phones, and stand up and move for a few minutes every hour. This will help improve local muscle strain, promote blood circulation, and improve cardiopulmonary function.

3. Maintain a suitable weight. Obesity is a risk factor for many chronic diseases, but the elderly should not pursue weight loss excessively. Being too thin may lead to reduced resistance and increase the risk of death. Experts and scholars believe that the weight of the elderly should not be too low, and the body mass index (BMI) is more suitable between 20.0-26.9kg/m². To maintain a suitable weight, the elderly should gradually adjust their diet and physical activity habits to gradually reach a normal weight range and avoid extreme measures that may cause a large change in weight in a short period of time.

4. Why do we need regular health examinations?

Regular health check-ups are a "protective umbrella" for the elderly. As they age, their physical functions, living conditions, and social interactions have changed significantly, which has led to constant changes in the factors that affect their nutritional health. Therefore, the elderly should pay more attention to their own diet, regularly self-evaluate their nutritional status, and discover potential health problems early and nip them in the bud.

1. Weigh yourself regularly to ensure that your weight is within the recommended normal range. If there is a large fluctuation in your weight within a short period of time, you should find out the cause in time and take appropriate measures to adjust it. For example, if you lose weight too quickly suddenly, your risk of diabetes will be higher.

2. Recording your diet is a simple and effective way to self-assess. By observing whether the types of food you eat are rich and whether they meet the recommended standards of 12 types of food per day and 25 types of food per week in the dietary guidelines, you can preliminarily judge whether your diet is reasonable. At the same time, pay attention to whether the energy intake is sufficient and whether the intake of various foods such as whole grains, aquatic products, meat, eggs, milk, soybeans, and vegetables meets the recommended intake in the Chinese Residents Dietary Guidelines.

3. Professional nutrition assessment and fine-tuning diet. Elderly people who suffer from multiple chronic diseases and whose physical functions have deteriorated significantly have special nutritional needs due to limited activities and the need for medical treatment. Such elderly people should receive professional malnutrition risk assessment and evaluation, and scientifically and finely regulate their diet under the guidance of medical nutrition professionals to ensure nutritional support during disease treatment and rehabilitation.

So, to build muscle and stay healthy, we old people must also show some of the drive we had when we were young! Eat well, exercise well, and be in a good mood, and life will be better! Through scientific diet, the elderly can get adequate nutrition, care for the health of the elderly, and keep their muscles healthy and full of vitality in their later years. In the winter of science and technology, with the power of popular science, we help the elderly to protect their health scientifically.

References:

[1] Hu Fei, Zhao Xiaoguang. Intervention of physical exercise and nutritional supplements on senile sarcopenia[J]. Chinese Journal of Gerontology, 2023, 43(06): 1524-1530.

[2] Li Cheng. Study on the relationship between dietary patterns and sarcopenia in the elderly[D]. Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021.

[3] Chinese Nutrition Society. Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022)[M]. Beijing: People's Medical Publishing House, 2022.

[4]The pictures are from the Internet. If there is any infringement, please contact us and we will delete them in time.