Abstract
ABSTRACTMany countries are facing aging populations, with those over 65 years of age likely to represent the largest population over the next 10–20 years. Living longer often comes with poor health and, in particular, a decline in the immune function characterized by poor vaccine responses and increased risk of infection and certain cancers. Aging and diet represent major intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence the makeup and activity of resident intestinal microbes, the microbiota, the efficient functioning of which is essential for sustaining overall health and the effectiveness of the immune system. The provision of elderly specific dietary recommendations appears to be lacking but is necessary since this population has an altered microbiota and immune response and may not respond in the same way as their healthy and younger counterparts. We have reviewed the evidence supporting the role of diet and, in particular, dietary carbohydrate, protein, and fat in influencing the microbiota and its generation of key metabolites that influence the efficient functioning of immune cells during aging, and how dietary intervention might be of benefit in improving the intestinal health and immune status in the elderly.
Highlights
The UK population is growing with increasingly more people reaching the eighth decade of age and beyond (Christensen et al, 2009)
Breastfed infants exhibit reduced expression of genes encoding products that can prime mucosal inflammatory responses, including natural killer (NK) cell lectin-like receptors (KLRF1), IL-1a, and arachidonate 5-lipoxygenase (Schwartz et al, 2012). This highlights that the functioning and health of the GI tract, the immune system, and the microbiota are closely interrelated and that environmental factors, such as diet, can have influential effects on this important relationship, which is discussed in more detail below
This is reinforced by the observation that elderly women consuming half of their daily protein requirement for 9 weeks had a 50% reduction in their delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) response compared with their baseline measure, while a protein intake of 2.94 g per kilogram body cell mass per day, which is the recommended daily amount (RDA), achieved a 47%
Summary
ISSN: 1040-8398 (Print) 1549-7852 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/bfsn.
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