Nutrition for Elderly Patients with Cardiovascular Diseases

Abstract

In nutritional guidance to prevent the development of arteriosclerosis, keep the calorie intake appropriate, suppress the intake of unsaturated fatty acids, refrain from sugar and salt, and limited alcoholic beverages consumption are advised. In recent years, in addition to these diets for preventing arteriosclerosis, as the number of undernourished elderly cardiovascular disease patients increases, more complicated nutritional guidance considering malnutrition is required. Many elderly patients with heart failure are undernourished, which is a cause of further deterioration of mental and physical function. It is useful to accurately evaluate this malnutrition and to perform appropriate interventions such as diet and exercise therapy. In the mini-review, we will summarize the nutritional assessment of elderly patients with cardiovascular disease as the end stage of atherosclerotic diseases and the nutritional assessment tools, which are useful for the evaluation. The nutritional status can be evaluated more accurately by combining several evaluation items. In the mini-review, we introduce MNA® (Mini Nutritional Assessment), GNRI (Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index), CONUT (Controlling Nutritional Status), and the GLIM criteria. These nutritional assessment tools are useful for elderly patients with atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases to evaluate their nutritional conditions.