Nutritional Status of the Aging

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Abstract
Serum vitamin A and carotene determinations, physical examinations and 7-day dietary records were obtained on 514 supposedly healthy men and women over 50 years of age. Thirty of the men were living in the county home, the others in their own homes. A small decline in both vitamin A and carotene serum levels occurred with age in both men and women, the mean values by decades being, in micrograms per cent, 60, 54 and 50 for the men and 57, 57, and 50 for the women. The corresponding carotene values were 119, 116, 109 for the men and 123, 127, 113 for the women. No significant sex differences were found. Only 5.6% of the subjects had serum vitamin A levels below 30 µg % and 5.2% above 80. Nearly half of both men and women had serum vitamin A levels between 40 and 60 µg %. The serum carotene levels varied more widely, with about 62% falling between 60 and 150 µg %. The dietary intakes were calculated for preformed vitamin A and for carotene separately and the probable vitamin A equivalent determined. This was found to be 2,387 µg per day for the men living in their own homes, 1,833 for the women and 1,354 for the men in the county home. This amounted to 33, 27, and 21 µg per kilogram of body weight. Twenty-seven per cent of the intake of the men living in their own homes was from carotene, 29% of that of the women and 18% of that of the men in the county home. About 11% of the men and 20% of the women took vitamin A supplements more or less regularly. When these were included the average total intakes were 11,470 and 10,200 I.U. daily for the men and women living in their own homes as compared with 10,640 and 8,450 when food sources only were used. A slight positive correlation between total vitamin A intake and serum vitamin A level was established for both men and women. The correlation between serum carotene and carotene intake was more pronounced, rz = 0.37. Thickening of the bulbar conjunctiva was noted in 94.1% of the subjects but this was not more marked in those with low than in those with high serum levels of vitamin A. The same was true of the other changes in the conjunctiva and skin. There was more relationship to age than to vitamin A levels or intakes in the distribution of these signs.