Malnutrition appears growing among the elderly
Lack of food was shutting down Andrew Lanzi's life - and he didn't even realize it. The 71-year-old widower and former mechanic, who lives in poverty in Northeast Philadelphia, just didn't feel like getting out of bed each day.
Lack of food was shutting down Andrew Lanzi's life - and he didn't even realize it.
The 71-year-old widower and former mechanic, who lives in poverty in Northeast Philadelphia, just didn't feel like getting out of bed each day.
And when he did, he'd enter a room and forget why he was there, then become disoriented and begin to drop things.
Unbeknownst to Lanzi, malnutrition was slowly sapping his energy and his essence. "I didn't have enough money to buy enough food," said Lanzi, who is estranged from his children and lives alone. "I lost a lot of weight."
Lanzi said his life was saved by meals delivered by the Jewish Community Center-Klein Branch in the Northeast.
"And I'm not even Jewish," he said, chuckling.
Although exact figures aren't known, malnutrition appears to be increasing among the elderly here and throughout the country, health experts say. And while malnutrition is brought on by several causes, poverty remains a primary reason.
"Poverty is huge in malnutrition," said Samantha Johnson, a nutritionist with the Food Trust, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit working to improve food access. "The elderly often don't have the money to eat the food they need."
Malnutrition occurs when a person doesn't eat a proper amount of calories, protein, or minerals, scientists say. An imbalance is created, caused by eating too little food, or too much of the wrong kinds of food - often cheap food high in fat and salt purchased by poor people with little choice in diet, scientists say.
Malnutrition, especially prevalent among the elderly, can lead to lost weight, reduced immunity to disease, frailty, and debilitation, health experts say.
Along with lack of food (or a surfeit of poor food), sometimes bad teeth, a lack of appetite from medication, or an inability to leave the home and shop for food can bring on malnutrition among seniors, experts say.
In some cases, malnutrition among the elderly is caused by the breakdown of protein that occurs when people suffer diseases such as cancer, as well as kidney, liver, and heart diseases, said David Frankenfield, chief clinical dietitian at the Pennsylvania State University Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
About 60 percent of senior citizens nationwide who show up in hospitals are malnourished, according to a recent issue of RN Journal, a publication for registered nurses. Of elderly people living in long-term care facilities, at least 35 percent may be malnourished, the journal reported.
The malnutrition seen in nursing home residents often developed before sufferers entered the facility, said Angela Ginn, a registered dietitian from Baltimore with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Overcoming malnutrition, even in the controlled setting of a nursing home, "is extremely hard," Ginn said.
Among the elderly not in hospitals or institutions, malnourishment occurs in 10 percent to 25 percent, various sources say.
No one has done research that explains how much malnutrition among the elderly is caused by lack of food, said Jean Lloyd, national nutritionist for the U.S. Administration on Aging.
But, she added, there's no doubt "poverty exacerbates the problem."
That's why food-delivery programs, such as the one run by the JCC, or by the 150 Meals on Wheels agencies statewide, help keep people going, Lloyd said.
"Elderly people would literally be starving without these programs," said Lynn Trombetta, assistant executive director of Aid For Friends, a meals-delivery outfit in the Northeast.
"The malnourishment we see is more prevalent in a low-income population," she said.
The Philadelphia Corp. for Aging funds Meals on Wheels programs that annually serve 1.5 million meals to 5,000 elderly in the city, said Allen Glicksman, director of research. PCA is the largest meals provider in the area, he added.
In Philadelphia, nearly 18 percent of the population 65 and over lives in poverty, the latest census figures show.
And 10 percent of Philadelphians 60 or above say they have skipped meals because of lack of money, Glicksman said.
Karen Buck, executive director of the SeniorLAW Center in Philadelphia, said that malnutrition and hunger in the city "are deeply intertwined with poverty and the harsh choices poor seniors are making every day among food, heat, safe shelter, and medical care." She added that among the impoverished elderly, "getting enough to eat is the focus; getting healthy food is a luxury."
Malnutrition among the elderly is becoming such a problem that President Obama has called for a White House Conference on Aging for 2015, in which malnutrition prevention will be a key focus, said Robert Blancato, executive director of the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Service Programs, an advocacy group for senior nutrition.
That the impoverished elderly must cope with malnutrition is a harsh reality for people like Andrew Lanzi.
"It's tough to live like this," he said, "especially after you've worked hard your whole life."
A National Problem
Federal figures show deaths from malnutrition nationwide for those 65 and older have been increasing recently, from 2,040, or 5.5 percent of the senior population in 2006, to 2,572, or 6.1 percent in 2011, the most recent year reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.EndText