Dietary Fat for the Elderly: What Are the Issues?

Several major chronic diseases that afflict the elderly are in part related to excess dietary fat. This needs to be balanced against the nutritive value of fat and the tendency for elderly people to eat less fat by choice. Recommendations to the elderly on how much fat they should eat are therefore complex. What type of fat to eat is simpler. Food lipids hâve many nutritional and biological functions as well as organoleptic properties. In the past, people hâve selected fat-containing foods for the flavor and texture and not the nutritive value, which fat imparts. Fats are a major source of energy, the source of the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) that hâve numerous regulatory effects, and the source of two essential fatty acids, linoleic and a-linolenic acids. The n-6 and n-3 fatty acids generate the potent eicosanoids, cellular signal transduction is influenced by inositol phosphatides, and cholestérol is the precursor of bile acids and of steroid hormones. The question is whether a significant réduction in dietary fats would jeopardize the adéquate intake of thèse fat-dependent nutrients.