HEALTH NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1775, 14 March 1906, Page 68

HEALTH NOTES.

DIET IN OLD AGE.

The organs of digestion and circulation undergo gradual changes with approaching age. Even . though the general health refmains unimpaired, the circulation has less vigour, the nervous system is less responsive, and through degenerative changes in the organs of secretion, there is an increased liability to a deposit in the tissues of phosphate and carbonate of lane from the food taken. Nourishment is not absorbed as readily or appropriated as thoroughly and the system is not as well fortified for emergencies in the way of any sudden demands upon it for either physical or mental exertion. The digestive powers sympathise with all this and are more feeble than formerly. The lessened expenditure of energy in the aged, however, partly atones for this, and persons of very advanced age can often live comfortably on a surprisingly small amount of food. Miost people eat more than they actually need for their day’s work, being supplied with food plentifully. This is not of so much moment in the young, though it were better for even them hot to be immoderate; but after the age of forty, control of the appetite is doubly important with many, as is also the requisite number of muscular exercises and fresh air. A man past his half century, continuing to consume the heavy dinners and lunches of younger life, is in imminent hanger of shortening his life through gout, rheumatic affections, unhealthy deposits in the tissues and around the vital organs, and last, but not least, apoplexy. It is said that the ‘‘typical man of eighty or ninety years is lean and spare, and lives on slender rations.” No hard and fast rules can be laid down as to a diet for the aged, since so much depends on the speed with which they grow, old —the rapidity of the senile changes—rules not being based so much on years as on the amount of physical decay.

Hence, in a general sense, I will say that the object should be to first suit the amount of food ingested to the condition of the system so it will be digested, and this means more or less diminution of the quantity; second, to take the food at more frequent intervals, perhaps four times a day rather than three; third,, to take only food known to be easily assimilated, and that is concentrated' enough to not produce a large amount of waste material in the system, which the organs of elimination cannot dispose of as they once could.

These rules would undoubtedly lengthen many an aged person’s life and make life more worth living. I know it is hard work for one of these people who have always given up to their appetites, and who late in life have vigour and old-time relish, to listen to reason in this matter. The saying is that what a person is found doing a’t forty, he.. will generally continue to do through life; and on this principle, reforms, to be successful, should be instituted early in life; but, on the other principle that it is never too late to mend, I -want to impress upon these people that it is possible for them to terminate life suddenly by. over-indul-gence in some favourite dish. The fact that a certain thing has always been eaten with impunity is r.o guarantee that it always will be, though this fact is often used as an excuse. A prominent authority in dietetics has well said:— \ “Persons who attain to very advanced age are almost invariably of spare habit, and the universal testimony in regard to centenarians is that they have never abused food or drink, and that in the later years of life at least, they have been very abstemious in the use of meat. In fact, Nature usually furnishes a hint in this direction by depriving them of them teeth, making it practically impossible to eat animal food which requires mastication, and, as Yeo suggests, fif artificial teeth are used for the purpose of continuing a diet composed of animal flesh, they will not prove an unqualified advantage.’ ” Though the intervals of feeding may be more frequent with these people, yet there should be regularity-—nothing haphazard. If teeth are lacking, all tough articles of diet should nob be chewed but eschewed. This does not mean a diet wholly fluid,, for semi-solids are needed to furnish mastication sufficient to induce a salivary flow requisite for proper digestion. Elderly people who awaken early in the morning and are unable to get to sleep, wall often find they will be able to do so if they have handy a glass of milk or gruel which they can take at that time.

Youing, tender chicken, game, and other tender meats are best in the meat line ifor the agied. Milk in all forms is especially good for these people. Egg beaten with milk has a large place in their diet, as does bread and milk, and most of the farinaceous foods if thoroughly cookedi

For sweetening food milk sugar is less likely to cause gases in the stomach. Aged people often find that some kind! of condiment with their food promotes digestion. Whenever fat is desired, a very easily assimilated form would be cream mixed with an equal quantity of hot water with about ten drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia added to each ounce oif fluid. Thus may we do something to conserve the vitality of the aged and have them longer with us.