Nutritional therapy eases elderly’s diseases

? The 60-year-old lung disease patient gasped for breath after certain meals. The culprit: High-calorie meals loaded with sugar.

Healthy people just breathe a little faster to excrete the carbon dioxide that’s produced by eating sugar. But lungs damaged by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease one of the nation’s top killers can’t handle both the extra work and the new pounds.

It’s one of numerous little-known diet tips that can make a big difference in easing chronic diseases that plague older Americans. But too few doctors have the time or training to deal with nutrition choices that are making their elderly patients sicker or even realize how medications can sabotage a senior’s already precarious diet.

Now they’re getting help: Dietitians have joined one of the largest primary-care physician groups to provide the first at-a-glance doctors’ nutrition guide for the most common killers of elderly Americans.

Better nutrition isn’t a cure, cautions Dr. Albert Barrocas, a New Orleans surgeon and nutrition professor who offered the sugar-lung disease example.

But the hope is that the new nutrition guide and some easy-to-use consumer advice will ease seniors’ suffering, maybe enough that some can cut back on prescription pills.

Nutritional intervention

Monitor low weight. While 120 pounds may be nice for a 30-something who’s 5-foot-4, that may be dangerously skinny for a 65-year-old. And losing 10 pounds in six months without trying is a danger signal. For example, seniors’ sudden weight loss can be an early sign of dementia.

Some common drugs, such as digoxin for heart failure, are among the worst appetite-killers.

Seniors often lose their taste for meats, yet protein builds muscles and helps the body recover from illness. Remember other protein-rich foods like beans, peanut butter and eggs.