Of course, the phenomenon of melt water has been studied in some detail by scientists and they associate its main benefit with a unique structure. When freezing, water acquires a special structure, which looks like an accumulation of a large number of regular-shaped crystals. At the moment of thawing, its crystal structure is preserved for some time. The exact duration will depend on the temperature.

Melt water molecules are smaller compared to tap water, which enables them to better penetrate cell membranes and activate metabolic processes. It helps to rejuvenate the body at the cellular level. In addition, there are fewer impurities in melt water.

Among the main advantages of melt water are: treatment for allergies, acceleration of metabolic processes, cleansing of toxins and toxins, strengthening immunity, improving digestion processes, and even increasing efficiency and improving sleep. In addition, it actively prevents the aging process, so it is widely used in cosmetology.

It is worth drinking melted water immediately after defrosting, until its temperature rises above 10 degrees. On melt water, you can also prepare herbal infusions, but at the same time it should not be heated above 37 degrees.

We are talking about the dangers of melt water when it is used and prepared improperly. So you should not drink only melt water, it must be introduced into the diet gradually (to give the body time to adapt). You should not drink melt water made from snow, as its purity leaves much to be desired.

To prepare melt water at home, collect water in a separate container and let it stand for several hours, then freeze the water in a convenient container. The first crust of ice (usually it appears after 1-2 hours) should be removed, since it is in it that heavy deuterium is present. When some unfrozen water and most of the ice remain in the container, drain the water (it contains harmful chemical compounds). Melt the resulting ice at room temperature, this will be the very useful melt water.

How to drink protein

Protein is divided into two main types - fast-digesting and long-digesting. It is logical that the fast one almost instantly charges the body with energy, but the slow one acts gradually.

Whey protein is fast-acting, so it should be taken on an empty stomach, a few hours before a workout or immediately after active loads.

Casein protein is a slow protein, so it is taken before bedtime or as a substitute for one of the meals. It satisfies hunger well and at the same time does not overload the body with excess fats and carbohydrates.

The rules for taking protein will directly depend on your specific goal.

If you want to build muscle mass, you should drink protein before and after training, but in the second case, the dosage should be immediately 2 times more. It is best to choose whey protein in the form of a hydrolyzate.

A small dose of protein just before bedtime will provide an influx of amino acids to the muscles during the most active period of their recovery - at night. In this case, casein protein is better, and it is better to choose protein isolate, since it is better purified and absorbed gradually.

If you plan to take protein for weight loss, then first divide your daily diet into 4-5 meals. It is important that the first falls between 7 and 9 in the morning, and the last at least 2 hours before a night's sleep. It is these meals that can be partially or completely replaced with protein shakes.

Morning is better to cook with whey protein, milk, oatmeal and even ice cream or sweet syrup. But in the evening you can add milk, cottage cheese and some fruits or berries. At the same time, sweets and flour products should be excluded from all other meals, since it is important to create a calorie deficit.

If we talk directly about protein recipes, then you can not bother and just mix it with water, and if you want to turn the protein into a full meal or dessert, then you can add fruits, vegetables, dairy and sour-milk products, cereals, sweeteners and etc.

How chewing gum and sleep can lead to wrinkles

The arsenal of modern cosmetology allows every woman to choose her own remedy in the struggle for youth and beauty. But few people know that magic injections, laser treatments and various cosmetics will be practically useless if you are used to using facial expressions often or sleeping exclusively with your face in the pillow. So what ages your skin?

You rub your eyes with your hands

The skin around the eyes requires a very careful and reverent attitude. It is very tender and sensitive, because it has few sebaceous glands and subcutaneous fat layer. If you do not properly care for this area, then the first wrinkles in the corners of the eyes may appear as early as 20-25 years. And with age, these manifestations will only worsen.

After any water procedures it is important to wipe the face with gentle blotting movements. wash your face water is better room temperature, wash off makeup from the eyes as carefully as possible, with smooth movements.

You sleep with your face in your pillow

Wrinkles can attack you at night too. Most often, people sleep in the same positions, and if in youth the so-called “sleep lines” quickly straighten out, then with age the risk that they will forever remain on the face is much higher.

If you sleep on your side, then wrinkles may appear on your cheeks and chin, if you sleep face-to-face in a pillow, on your forehead and neck. Nasolabial folds will be more noticeable on the side on which you most often lie.

The main insidiousness of "sleep wrinkles" is that they form without muscle contraction, so creams and muscle blockers have no effect on them. There are two ways to avoid such problems: sleep on your back or glue teips on your face at night.

Remember that another serious enemy of your skin is lack of sleep. If you want to look cheerful and fresh in the morning, go to bed early.

Do you often tilt your neck

With the advent of gadgets in our lives, the number of patients with osteochondrosis and diseases in the spine has increased dramatically. We spend a lot of time with our heads tilted to the phone or our necks stretched out to the monitor. Under such conditions, the back muscles are greatly weakened and wrinkles appear. To avoid this, it is important to keep your head straight at all times so that the angle between your neck and chin is around 90 degrees. Get in the habit of constantly monitoring your posture and try to move as much as possible.

Do you often chew gum

Another non-obvious cause of wrinkles is the love of chewing gum. They provoke excessive tension of the chewing muscles, which gives a strong load on the jaw. And this provokes the appearance of wrinkles around the mouth.

In our society, it is customary to consider illness and poor health in the elderly. Fortunately, medicine has confidently refuted this stereotype. In old age, you can and should be healthy, and proper nutrition will play one of the main roles in this.

Official medicine has long recognized that the calendar age (in the passport) can differ significantly from the biological age. In other words, the actual state of systems and organs in 60 calendar years corresponds to 40 years. And vice versa, more and more often there are people whose body is already worn out by the age of 30 and corresponds to a 40-50 year old person.

What wears out our organs and cells, disrupts their proper functioning? In addition to mechanical damage (injuries), every day the body is forced to work "for wear", struggling with stress and poisoning.

Stress mobilizes a lot of systems, makes muscles contract, changes hormonal levels. Excessively tense skeletal muscles disrupt normal blood flow, worsen posture.
This leads to constant pain in the spine, especially in the lumbar region and neck. And the changed hormonal background affects all the exchanges in the body.

Poisoning has become commonplace and the norm of life. If we are aware of the presence of stress and try to deal with it, then the majority does not take poisoning into account. Nature has created the human body to be almost perfect and it has many mechanisms to minimize the effects of poisoning. But any resources are not unlimited, and if the body is not helped, then it wears out much faster than nature intended.

Let us explain why we are subject to poisoning every day. Only 2 factors: we inhale poisoned air and eat poisons. If you stop eating poisons and help the systems a little to clear the toxic substances in the air, then you will remove a terrible load from the body. There will be healing and renewal of all cells, tissues, organs. The lightness and health of youth will return.

Perhaps you were indignant after reading the previous paragraph: “I don’t eat any poisons!”.

Let us explain, in addition to the huge number of additives that are used in modern food production, absolutely any substance eaten in excess of the body's need for this substance is a poison for the body. With small excesses, partial elimination or “storage for the future” is possible, but with a systematic excess of a number of substances, the body can no longer cope, and various diseases are acquired.

So, what, how and how much you need to eat in old age to protect the body from food poisoning and help it cope with stress and air poisoning? Or in other words, how to help yourself rejuvenate and restore health? Let's talk briefly about the basic and very simple rules.

Rules for proper nutrition of people in old age

1. It is not allowed to exceed the total caloric content of the food eaten relative to daily energy consumption.
At first glance, this rule may seem difficult to implement, but for the sake of maintaining health, it is worth making a little effort.
With age, a person's energy needs decrease. Unfortunately, not many reduce the calorie content of the diet and most often at 40 and even 60 years old, many consume the same amount as at 20 years old.

Of course, there are people who, even after reaching 60 and even 80 years of age, lead an extremely active lifestyle. But, as a rule, activity decreases over the years, the rate of metabolic processes also decreases, as a result of which the need for calories is reduced.

Studies have shown that on average a person aged 60-70 needs 20% less energy than a 30-year-old, and 30% less at the age of 71-80. If you do not take this fact into account and eat in the usual way for many years, then the development of obesity, atherosclerosis, hypertension, coronary heart disease, diabetes mellitus, gallstone and urolithiasis, gout and many other diseases.

It can be said very roughly about the energy needs of older people that after 60 years, men need about 2300 kcal per day, and women 2100 kcal per day, after 75 years, men and women need 2000 kcal and 1900 kcal per day, respectively. Once again, we emphasize that these norms are indicative and cannot be followed without taking into account individual characteristics. They are designed for people with a standard figure and not having excess fat. In fact, ¾ of the population over 60 years of age are overweight, and therefore one should strive for calorie intake below the average daily energy expenditure. But this is already the topic of other articles that are posted in the "How to lose weight" section.

2. Protein intake in strict accordance with the physiological norm.

Cells in the human body are constantly updated and the amount of protein eaten should provide the material necessary for the construction of new cells. A lack of protein causes a state of protein deficiency. But you should not eat protein above the norm, either. any organism, and especially in old age, with an excess intake of protein, needs to do extra work to remove metabolic products. This is an additional burden on the liver, kidneys and an increased risk of atherosclerosis.

With age, the rate of cell renewal decreases, so less protein is needed. The average daily intake in proteins for men and women over 60 years old is 70 g and 65 g, respectively, and for people over 75 years old - 60 g and 57 g.

It must be remembered that proteins in different foods are not equivalent. The differences are described in detail in the article “Amino acid composition of proteins”. Therefore, the diet is made so that at least 50% of the proteins are obtained from animal products. It is best if these are proteins of dairy and fish products. Meat in old age is desirable to consume not much, because. it contains a number of substances undesirable for the body. For example, refractory fats and cholesterol.

3. Careful attention to fat intake.
The physiological norm of fat consumption in old age is 75 g per day for men and 70 g for women up to 75 years old, after 75 years the norm decreases to 70 g and 65 g per day, respectively.

According to the effect on the body, fats can be divided into extremely harmful and useful.

The harmful ones are refractory animal fats found in meat and meat products.

Milk fat are useful, because contain lecithin and fat-soluble vitamins. It is advisable to make a diet so that this type of fat accounts for about 1/3.

Vegetable oils are an important part of the diet at any age, but for older people their use is of particular importance. Sunflower, linseed, corn and other vegetable oils contain polyunsaturated fatty acids - linoleic, linolenic, arachidonic. These acids increase the elasticity of blood vessels, reduce the permeability of the vascular wall. But the most significant thing is that they normalize the cholesterol content in the blood that is so often overestimated in the elderly. Namely, they accelerate the conversion of cholesterol in the liver into bile acids and contribute to its excretion.
It is also important that polyunsaturated fatty acids have a stimulating effect on the intestines. This will help to cleanse the body in a timely manner, give a feeling of lightness.
When heated and refined, the amount of useful acids, vitamin E, phosphagides and sitosterol in vegetable oils decreases, so it is better to use unrefined oil in salads, it is possible to add it to cereals and other ready meals.

Despite the benefits of vegetable oils, they must be consumed in strict accordance with the norm, which is 20-25 g per day, or 1/3 of the total amount of fat consumed. A larger amount, in addition to the inevitable increase in the calorie content of the diet, can lead to the accumulation of oxidation products of unsaturated fatty acids.

4. Careful attention to carbohydrate intake.
The maximum intake of carbohydrates for men and women over 60 years of age should be no more than 340 g and 310 g per day, respectively, and no more than 290 g and 275 g after 75 years. Carbohydrates are best obtained from vegetables and fruits, which are rich in pectin and fiber.
Sugar, rich products, sweet drinks should give no more than 15% of carbohydrates, and if they are overweight, they should be excluded. If you really want sweets, then you can use xylitol instead of sugar. In addition to sweetness, it has beneficial effects in old age - a slight laxative and choleretic effect.
In any case, the consumption of sugar should be treated very carefully and not exceed the allowable rate of 15%. age-related changes in the work of the pancreas occur in almost 2/3 of people.



5. Use vitamins and minerals in strict accordance with personal standards.
This point may seem very complicated, but do not rush to conclusions. We suggest you use the Calculator without any effort on your part will automatically calculate the percentage of what you eat to your individual norm.

After 60 years, the body's needs for macro- and microelements change quite significantly.

Consumption calcium it is recommended to reduce to 800 mg per day. When consuming more calcium salts, they can be deposited in various organs and tissues. So many suffer from Menckeberg's arteriosclerosis. This is a form of arterial damage in which calcium salts are deposited on the walls and interfere with normal blood flow.
At the same time, calcium deficiency leads to osteoporosis. In this disease, the body compensates for the lack of calcium by taking it from the bones, which makes the bones brittle and leads to fractures.

Amount consumed magnesium in old age, it is recommended to increase, because. this macronutrient

• helps relieve spasms and relax the muscles of internal organs;
• stimulates the work of the intestines;
• increases bile secretion;
• helps improve cholesterol metabolism.

Consumption sodium should also be reduced with age, especially in the composition of salt (salty foods, smoked meats and sodium chloride). If blood pressure is often elevated, then sodium intake is sharply reduced. But we will not talk about this in detail, because. A separate article is devoted to the issue of nutrition in hypertension.

Norm gland cannot be defined equally for all people, because there are a number of conditions that significantly change the required amount. On average, it is in the range of 10 to 15 mg per day.
If there are no disorders in the digestive system and not diagnosed Iron-deficiency anemia, then 10 mg of iron per day is enough. If there are any disturbances in the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, or the efficiency of iron incorporation into red blood cells is reduced, then iron intake is increased to 15 mg per day.

Unlike minerals, the need for vitamins practically does not change with age.

About the need to use vegetable oils has already been said above. We emphasize once again that polyunsaturated fatty acids and lecithin, which are found in vegetable oils, trigger a whole mechanism that helps to remove excess cholesterol from the body, which means they help your blood vessels stay healthy.

Daily consumption is essential to maintain health. vegetables and unsweetened fruits. They help in three ways:

1. contain fiber, which increases the speed of movement of food through the intestines, thereby helping to cleanse the intestines in a timely manner and remove cholesterol (in the form of coprosterol) with feces;
2. contain pectin, various sterols that interfere with the absorption of eaten cholesterol in the intestine;
3. increase the secretion of bile, which also helps to remove cholesterol.

Legumes, oatmeal, herring and cottage cheese have an anti-sclerotic effect due to the content choline (vitamin B4). Choline is needed by the body for the synthesis of lecithin. It has already been written about above, but it is worth emphasizing once again that the use of lecithin is in the ability to form special compounds with cholesterol - hydrophilic lipoprotein complexes. In the form of such compounds, cholesterol cannot be deposited on the walls of blood vessels and is easily removed from the blood.

Also, anti-sclerotic products include products containing the amino acid methionine. Its effect on the human body is very similar to the choline described above. Most methionine is contained (mg per 100 g of product):

• most of the cereals
  buckwheat - 320,
  millet - 296,
  in other cereals at the level of 120-200;


• of the most commonly consumed fish and seafood, most of all in
  carpe - 500,
  ice fish - 620,
  lemonme - 620,
  pollock - 600,
  marble notothenia - 574,
  sea ​​perch - 500,
  bonito - 806,
  haddock - 530,
  blue whiting - 579,
  herring - 537,
  sardine - 779,
  mackerel - 600,
  horse mackerel - 577,
  zander - 534,
  cod - 500,
  hake - 510,
  pike - 534,
  squid - 492,
  fresh shrimp - 545,
  frozen-boiled Antarctic shrimp - 651;
• in meat products and poultry meat, the content of methionine is
  in beef - 445-515,
  in veal - 414-453,
  in lamb - 356-453,
  rabbit meat - 499,
  in pork - 342-410,
  in turkey - 497-518,
  in chickens - 471-574,
  in duck - 370-447;
• in eggs – 424;
• in dairy products most of all in
  cottage cheese - 384-480,
  cheeses - 540-780,
  in milk, cream, kefir about 70.

1. eating at the same time with the exception of long breaks;
2. a small amount of food at one meal.

A 4-meal diet is recommended. The bulk of the food should be eaten in the morning. According to the energy value, the distribution is as follows:
1st breakfast - 25%,
2nd breakfast - 15-20%,
lunch - 30-35%,
dinner - 20-25%.

It is possible and even in many cases it is highly desirable to use one glass of some low-fat fermented milk product at night. For example, kefir.

After the age of 75 or in the presence of various diseases, five meals a day are recommended with the following distribution of caloric content by meal:
1st breakfast - 25%,
2nd breakfast - 15%,
lunch - 30%,
dinner - 20%,
2nd dinner - 10%.

The article is based on the materials of the following authors:
prof. B.L. Smolyansky, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Head of the Department of Hygiene and Clinical Dietetics of the Dnepropetrovsk Medical Institute;
prof. Zh.I. Abramova, doctor of medical sciences.

Who eats right today, or at least knows how to eat right? What is it, that most effective program of our balanced nutrition and effective life?
We don't have a definite answer. There are a lot of diets, methods, programs, directions, and therefore it is difficult to decide which one to prefer in order to actively replenish, and not waste your energy potential on trifles.

Products give us strength, energize, shape our organs - from complexion to figure.
Food is a building material, a medicine, and a poison. Our whole life depends on the food we eat, and how well it is chosen, our heart, blood vessels, brain, tissues and other vital organs will be so healthy tomorrow, in a month, in a year, 10 years.

Many of us only know that our food should consist of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and there are also enzymes, acids and much more. They are the energy base of our food. And both a lack and an excess of any of them upset this balance and can even be dangerous to health.

In short, there are no less questions than answers. In addition to the fact that our diet must be balanced, it must not contain food hazards. And there are plenty of them today - refined foods, food additives, hydrogenated oils, various kinds of stabilizers, preservatives, fillers, flavors, dyes, surrogates and unpurified water.

The energy base of the diet consists of proteins, saturated and unsaturated fats and carbohydrates. An excess of any of them (as well as a deficiency) is dangerous to health. They also need to be consumed in certain quantities.

Large protein molecules consist of smaller amino acids, which are interconnected inside the protein, like links in a single chain. Part of the amino acids can enter the body only from the outside with food; such amino acids are called essential. Other amino acids are non-essential because they are produced internally in the body.

Therefore, the usefulness of protein products is largely determined by the content of essential amino acids in them.

Rich sources of protein: white meat of chickens and turkeys, liver and meat of calves, fish and fish products, cottage cheese, egg whites.

Vegetable protein products usually do not contain all essential amino acids, however, vegetable protein has nutritional value precisely because of the presence of essential amino acids in it. A large amount of protein is found in the leaves of onion, parsley, watercress, horseradish.

Organic acids contained in vegetables in significant quantities determine their sour taste (sorrel, borage, lettuce). Many vegetables are dominated by citric and malic acids, but there are also oxalic and tartaric acids.

Organic acids are actively involved in metabolism, stimulate the activity of the salivary glands.

In most plants, not one substance turns out to be curative, but a combination of substances. In cases where plant foods predominate in the human diet (for example, among vegetarians), it has to be artificially enriched with essential amino acids in the form of special nutritional supplements.

An important note about the quality of protein products

Any methods of preserving protein products (primarily meat) reduce nutritional value this product. Repeated freezing and thawing, adding preservatives, etc. destroy the natural structure of fragile protein molecules.

The nutritional value of frozen meat is at least 40% lower compared to the same non-frozen product.

In principle, one should strive for natural products (such as fresh meat, fresh fish, eggs, white poultry meat), and too intensive processing of such products (for example, deep frying or long digestion) also reduces the nutritional value of proteins.

So, a 100-gram piece of beef tenderloin cooked “with blood” will be more valuable in terms of nutrition than 300 grams of the same boiled meat or the notorious Bush chicken legs.

Don't mindlessly consume protein!

So we know that...

1 Natural proteins are the natural building blocks of our body.

We don't know what...

2 Even in the best condition, proteins, if consumed in excessive amounts, can cause serious damage to the body's chemistry.

When a person reaches his maturity, he needs a minimum amount of protein - only to maintain "nitrogen balance". Therefore, when old age approaches, even this minimum can be reduced.

3 It is believed that dairy products cause great harm to older people. “Most of the old people are swimming inside their milk coffins,” Dr. Williams from London so wisely joked. If the secretion and bile of the liver are toxic and acidic, the milk curdles in the stomach into curds and turns into a hard and viscous substance, like rubber. Serum, forming lime urate, clogs the bile ducts, settles in the gallbladder and contributes to the formation of gallstones. It is lime urate that forms a whitish coating on the tongue and causes bad breath (the tongue is a barometer of the liver).

In liver diseases, attention should be paid to the use of milk as a dietary protein, especially for the elderly.

4 Different proteins are incompatible during meals, so only one protein should be consumed at a time.

5 Boiled and fried animal protein in the body turns into a little digestible and therefore rots during the digestion process (90% of diseases from it!).

6 The addition of salt to meat, both raw and cooked, always causes severe indigestion.

7 Do not boil or fry egg whites. The longer the protein is cooked, the more putrefactive products will be in the urine, sweat, and other secretions. It should be lightly cooked (stewed).

Roasting and boiling egg white makes it toxic. Egg yolk is more nutritious and harmless if eaten raw or soft boiled.

8 All strongly cooked proteins are digested with difficulty and cause blood poisoning, especially pork, veal, fish, poultry, small game, sea shellfish, cheeses.

9 Nuts should be finely ground (for example, in a coffee grinder) and used as an additive to salads, in the form of nut patties, cocktails, etc.

Nuts in an unprocessed, natural form are difficult for the stomach to digest, especially if they are not crushed in the most diligent way.

10 Even the most ideal protein should be consumed with raw plant foods (salads). In addition, the protein is fully absorbed with vitamin C - their ratio should be as follows: 110 g of meat and 1 mg of vitamin C.

Diego Velazquez, Peasant Dinner (1618) Image from wikipedia.org

Older people usually have reduced absorption of food and energy. This is mainly due to a decrease in bodily activity, as well as problems with chewing food and swallowing.

Old age is characterized by a decrease in the number of cells in different tissues and organs of the body, and a decrease in basal metabolism, that is, the number of calories that the body burns during the day. For example, a decrease in muscle mass occurs due to the fact that there are fewer and fewer muscle fibers - non-recoverable muscle cells. A similar process can be observed in the kidneys, cerebral cortex and a number of other tissues.

In addition, due to changes in the body, the need for metals, trace elements and nutrients increases, since due to the frequent use of various medications and digestive problems, the necessary substances are not absorbed in the proper quantity and quality.

When planning a diet for the elderly, the following rules should be considered.

1. Food should contain a lot of proteins, trace elements, vitamins, and also be balanced.

Insufficient protein intake plays a significant role in poor health in old age. A slight lack of them causes a feeling of weakness and constant fatigue. As a result of a large lack of proteins, damage and destruction of tissues and organs occurs, a decrease in the physical functions of the body and an increased risk of infections.

The body of an elderly person can get the proteins, calcium and iron he needs through the regular consumption of a certain amount of meat. Calcium, in particular, helps prevent bone fragility, its deficiency in the human body causes a decrease in bone density. Iron prevents anemia.

One of the reasons older people don't eat meat is because they can't chew it. Therefore, it is necessary to serve it in a soft or processed form. In any case, it is useful for elderly people to eat a dish of meat, fish or poultry once a day, and once a week - from the liver. Milk, sour-milk products, cheese and eggs will also help to make up for the lack of proteins, calcium and certain vitamins.

The need for vitamins is a particularly serious problem, given that their absorption is at least halved with age due to reduced food intake as a result of age-related loss of appetite, possible deterioration in living conditions with retirement, taking a large number of medications, and also reducing the digestibility of fats, with regard to fat-soluble vitamins.

Vitamin A has antioxidant properties and protects against many forms of epithelial cancer (the risk of which largely increases with age). The main source of its receipt is fruits and vegetables, as well as animal products such as liver, milk and egg yolk. All of them contain beta-carotene and lycopene, which are the precursors of vitamin A. In addition to its antioxidant function, this vitamin plays an important role in the mechanism of vision and is of great importance for the health of our skin.

Vitamin D needed for calcium metabolism, and therefore for good bone function. Unfortunately, the vast majority of older people receive only half the required daily dose. Part of the reason for this phenomenon is that older people are less likely to be outdoors, in the sun, as well as the reduced ability of kidney cells to process this vitamin into its active form. The main sources of vitamin D are salmon fish, sardines and shrimp. You can also take appropriate nutritional supplements.

Vitamin C- water-soluble, it is found in large quantities in bell peppers, citrus fruits, broccoli, kiwi, strawberries and tomatoes. Its metabolism proceeds differently in older men and women. Therefore, even if men receive an equal or greater dose of this vitamin, their plasma levels are lower compared to women. Older men should take 150 mg of ascorbic acid daily, and older women should take 75-80 mg per day.

Vitamin E also has antioxidant properties. Its main sources are vegetable oils and margarine.

For the health of the elderly is very important and vitamin B12. A low level of this vitamin in the body leads to changes in the personality structure, a decrease in mental activity and connective tissue disorders. A decrease in the concentration of hydrochloric acid in the stomach prevents the normal absorption of this vitamin, so in old and old age, you can take it as a dietary supplement.

2. Food should contain the amount of calories that will cover the energy costs of an elderly person and keep him in good physical shape.

This amount of calories consumed is able to maintain the normal weight of an elderly person, equal to that which he had at 25 years old (of course, provided that there is no obesity at this age). The older a person gets, the fewer calories they consume. If old man suffers from obesity or, conversely, malnutrition, it is necessary to adjust his diet and gradually bring his weight back to normal. At the same time, it should be taken into account that in older people, both obesity and malnutrition are associated, among other things, with psychological problems - senile depression, stress, feelings of loneliness and own uselessness.

V.S. Bayuskin, "Dinner" (1950) Image: liveinternet.ru

3. Food should have a composition that would prevent constipation and dehydration.

Constipation in older people is often associated with a decrease in the amount of mucus in the large intestine, as well as some dehydration. They need to drink enough liquids (water, tea, juices, soups), and also eat cooked (boiled or baked) vegetables and fruits. They are easier to chew, swallow and digest than raw vegetables and fruits.

The consumption of an insufficient amount of fluid also leads to the fact that it is not enough for the full removal of metabolic products from the body, urine becomes more concentrated, and it is less than necessary. At the same time, the kidneys are forced to function more actively, and with age, we have less and less active nephrons (structural and functional units of the kidneys).

An elderly person needs to be given liquid in small amounts and often, because in this case it is better absorbed and circulates in the body. Most older people prefer to drink warm liquids and avoid cold liquids.

4. When preparing food, you can and should add a small amount of different spices.

Firstly, some spices speed up the metabolism, and secondly, they make food tasty and support the appetite of an elderly person, which is important at this age. Of course, the amount and type of spices added to food should be according to his taste and preferences.

5. You need to maintain a diet.
It is best for an elderly person to eat at certain hours, because food is better absorbed this way. Meals can be frequent or small. For example, breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. The latter can be made nutritious enough so that a person is not hungry at night, and a glass of milk or kefir can do. It all depends on personal preferences and characteristics of a particular elderly person.

6. Do not pressure older people and do not force them to eat.

This rule does not apply to cases where older people suffer from senile anorexia. In other cases, they can decide for themselves how much they need to eat in order to be full. If an elderly person is depressed, if he is pessimistic and has no appetite, you need to prepare tasty light meals for him and give them in small quantities, but more often than usual. In any case, it is necessary to respect the wishes of the elderly and their possible refusal to eat certain foods that they may not like.

Sources:
Stavros Plessas. Dietology of man. — Athens, 1998.

Almost every age-related fracture is due to loss of muscle mass, sarcopenia. One of the main causes of sarcopenia after the age of 40 is a lack of exercise, especially with weights. A decrease in the secretion of anabolic hormones such as testosterone and growth hormone also plays a role. As muscle mass decreases, so does insulin sensitivity, as active muscles affect insulin activity, improving glucose transport.

The remedy for all this is quite simple - effective nutrition and resistance exercises, for example, with dumbbells and a barbell. Gradually, however, scientists found out that over the years, the pattern of processing by the body of nutrients entering it also changes, which should also be taken into account. Take for example protein intake after 40 years. The traditional recommendation is to consume small portions every 2-3 hours. However, older ages of both sexes show a better degree of protein absorption in the case of less frequent consumption.

It is generally recommended to take protein both before and after a training session to maximize the anabolic response. Recent studies have shown that you can benefit from even six grams of essential amino acids. Essential acids must come from outside so that the body can produce essential amino acids and other compounds from them. However, here too we see differences between the young and the old. While taking essential amino acids before and after exercise boosts anabolic effects in younger adults, the elderly get the same benefit from whey protein. And this is not surprising, because whey protein is very rich in essential amino acids, including about 16% of BCAAs, which have the greatest effect on muscle protein synthesis.

A recent experiment tested the effect of "slow" protein taken before and after training on the example of 26 men of an average age of 72 years. They were divided into experimental and control groups and trained three times a week for 12 weeks. The first group received 10 grams of casein hydrolyzate before training and ten more after. All volunteers had a normal amount of protein foods in their diet.

Protein intake before and after exercise did nothing to increase the anabolic response of skeletal muscle that usually occurs as a result of resistance training. Both groups showed the same increase in muscle mass, most of which occurred in the lower body. As expected, type 2 muscle fibers mostly grew, and this is important, because they are the most prone to age-related atrophy, which is the cause of most accidents in older people.

So, weight training is an anti-aging remedy. But additional protein before and after a training session did not lead to additional muscle gain in older adults whose diets already contained normal amounts of protein. Conclusion: you need to take whey protein.

1. Verdijk, L.B., et al. (2009). Protein supplementation before and after exercise does not further augment skeletal hypertrophy after resistance training in elderly men. Am J Clinic Nutr. 89:608-16.