Vitamin status of elderly people in Germany.

In the last decade several attempts (Nationale Verzehrsstudie, NVS; Verbundstudie Ernährungserhebung und Risikofaktoren-Analytik, VERA: Bethanien-Ernährungsstudie, 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 indicate that healthy older people are not at higher risk for vitamin deficiency 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 recommendations. Only 5% of blood vitamin concentrations analyzed in a subpopulation (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 patients showed markedly lower vitamin blood concentrations compared to healthy subjects of the same age (BEST-Study). This might be explained by physical and mental deterioration, handicaps, chronic diseases and multiple chronic drug use. Underrepresentation of very old people, lack of reliable reference values for 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.