Vitamin status of elderly people in Germany

In the last decade several attempts (Nationale Verzehrsstudie, NVS; Verbund studie Ernahrungserhebung und Risikofaktoren-Analytikt VERA; Bethanien-Erna hrungsstudie, BEST) have been made to assess the nutritional status of the elderly in Germany. A careful evaluation of those data describing the vitamin status clearly in dicate that healthy older people are not at higher risk for vitamin deficie ncy compared to younger adults. The results of the NVS showed that, except for folic acid, mean intake of all vitamins exceeded 80% of the current rec ommendations. Only 5% of blood vitamin concentrations analyzed in a subpopu lation (VERA-Study) were founded to be below the physiological range. Only the incidence of low cobalamin values increased with age, presumably due to gastrointestinal problems (atrophic gastritis). In contrast, geriatric pat ients showed markedly lower vitamin blood concentrations compared to health y subjects of the same age (BEST-Study). This might be explained by physica l and mental deterioration, handicaps, chronic diseases and multiple chroni c drug use. '' Underrepresentation of very old people, lack of reliable reference values f or biomarkers and uncertainties in data collection may have contributed to misinterpretations. Representative studies are needed to objectively assess the nutritional status of the elderly population in Germany.