Recap: How to adapt your diet for later life | Dr Federica Amati
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Hello and welcome to Zoe Recap, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to help you improve your health. Today we're discussing food for the future. A lot of things change as we age. Our dress sense, our taste in music, and importantly, our body. The truth is your body is not the same as it was 20 or even 10 years ago. So why should your diet be the same?

Dr. Federica Amati is here to explain why our nutrition needs change as we enter later life and how we can adjust our diet to support this. We need to be aware that our bodies change throughout our lives. We are not static beings. We evolve every year. We become someone new in terms of physiology and metabolism. A lot of the people I've worked with one-on-one, Jonathan, come to me and they say, I've always eaten this way. It's always served me. And now suddenly it doesn't.

And what I would love for people to embrace and to understand is that we're supposed to change. And changing is part of the privilege of aging. So if we're lucky enough to live a long life,

then we should expect that our bodies and our physiology and our needs change with that. Federica, is there anything specifically that you're talking about then as we go into later life that is different about the dietary advice from what you've been talking about in these earlier stages? Yes, there is. So as we get older, there's a few things that happen. And it means that we become slightly less efficient at absorbing nutrients and

and also utilizing them. So this is really talking 65 plus, but also in this midlife period, it becomes really important to go back to these principles of having a high nutrient diet, also making sure that we're not over consuming energy dense foods because our metabolism and our lifestyles often don't allow for that. So our metabolic flexibility, which is what we were talking about earlier, how our body clocks function,

I've become a little bit less like punchy. So when we're really young, you know, our insulin increase in the morning is really marked. When you look at the 20 year old, their insulin in the morning goes right up, ready to have the breakfast and make the most of it. That really starts to like flatten as we get older. So your ability to cope with the cake or whatever is just much lower. Is that what you're saying? Exactly, yeah. And so we have to be aware of that and

feed our bodies food that is a bit kinder to the metabolism. And also because our metabolism is changing, we are becoming less efficient at absorbing and putting nutrients in the right place at the right time. So the biggest concern in people over sort of 70, 65, 70 years, their appetite tends to be reduced.

And actually, this is when thirst starts to be a little bit less efficient. So people worry like in their 20s about making sure they get enough water, but really that's not an issue. We don't need to be carrying like 20 liter jugs of water with us at that age. Our thirst response is really good when we're younger. We get thirsty, we drink. As we get older, that's less efficient. So the risk of dehydration starts creeping up.

What's really crucial here is that if you're in your 70s and you live alone, and perhaps you have a bit of arthritis on the hands, or perhaps you don't have all of your own teeth, it is much easier to eat very soft, easy to handle ultra-processed foods. And ultra-processed foods, aside from being low in nutrients, are also incredibly dry. It's one of the ways that they have such a long shelf life.

So whereas it's great for us to get some water from our food, from fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, soups and stews, they're all quite naturally hydrating foods. If when we're older, we start reverting to cake bars and biscuits, mostly because they're just easy to eat, then we also lose the opportunity to hydrate through our food.

And I'm guessing they're also just not good for you because they're... Not enough nutrients, yeah. But also the ultra-processed food itself is likely to be having negative... There is no positives to them, yeah. So with older people, if they become malnourished, if they become dehydrated, it is a much worse picture. So it's a much more severe effect.

You know, an elderly person who's dehydrated could easily fall over and fracture their hip, for example. That's something we really want to avoid. So making sure that we nourish the older people in our lives, or if there's somebody listening to this and maybe they're 70 and they're approaching their 70s, I have clients who are in their 70s,

embracing nutrient-dense foods, making these really delicious soups and stews with beans and lentils and whole grains, and making the most of these foods that we know are brilliant at nourishing us, and they are naturally hydrating, and they naturally help with decreasing the risk of constipation, which is a huge problem later in life, then we can really help someone's quality of life, and we can add extra life years.

And is there anything, because I think a lot of people listening to this will be saying, hey, I've already made a big shift to my diet. Maybe there's Zoe members, maybe they're not, but they've been listening to this podcast for a long time and they've been making a lot of changes. Is there anything around the diet itself that for the average person in, let's say, their 70s or 80s, listening to this is different from this average advice you were giving to somebody who was 40? Yeah, so it's really...

focusing on foods that, and on meals that are really complete because of this reduced appetite. So every meal opportunity needs to be really nutrient dense. And that's why I talk about these stews and these soups and making things like lentil shepherd's pie, because A, you can batch cook and freeze in portions. So making it easier for the older person to have the meals ready to go. And B, they are nutrient packed and they are also a little bit hydrating.

Those two things are really important as we get older. And I think there has to be a bit more of a focus as well on fiber rich. I mean, fiber rich foods are a focus throughout our lives. But I can tell you that one of the things that I find really amazing is the difference that not being constipated can make to an older person because older people tend to be less mobile.

And the less mobility or reduced mobility with ultra-processed food consumption, which is devoid of fiber, plus dehydration is the perfect storm for quite severe constipation. And it's not something you want to be dealing with for like days on end. So I really...

Yeah, looking after your gut. We have like a natural aging of the gut as well. So it needs a bit more love. And just really making sure that we provide opportunity for these very nourishing, hydrating foods that are high in fiber. And Federica, we had a lot of questions about protein. Yeah. Do you have any change in the advice around protein? Yeah.

So I think, as I mentioned, we're less efficient at absorbing protein. And typically, we become more insulin resistant. And insulin is this hormone which is really important for the uptake of all nutrients into cells. So if we become more insulin resistant, we also have more difficulty absorbing amino acids into tissues, which is why there's a recommendation for more protein.

for older adults because they're just a bit less good at absorbing it. Now, what I will say is like this increase is minimal. So we're talking about from 0.83 grams per kilogram of body weight as recommended by all of the global public health authorities, it's like maybe up to one gram per kilogram. And actually working that out in your head is really hard and I don't recommend anyone tries to track it. It's more about having that awareness piece. And it's kind of what I just said about really nutrient-dense meals.

So make sure that every meal opportunity for the older person in your life, if that's you, has a really good source of plant protein in it. Or perhaps it's eggs every now and then, or perhaps it's oily fish. But really make every meal opportunity an opportunity to get some high quality food, which will no doubt have the amino acids you need. So...

It is real. You do need to increase your protein intake as you get older because you're not absorbing as much. But it doesn't mean that you need to be paranoid about making sure that you're eating sort of red meat every day. No, no. Yeah. And I think what's really important, Jonathan, I think people often overlook the importance of

Yes, we need to eat protein, but we also need to move because actually if you're trying to maintain muscle mass or create new muscle tissue, the biggest driving factor for that is using your muscles and giving them something to do. So just eating the protein isn't going to help by itself. If you're eating enough food, if you're eating enough whole foods, nutrient-dense foods, you will be getting a variety of amino acids and enough protein. ♪

That's it for this week's recap. If you're hearing this, you're already on your way to making smarter food choices with world-leading science. Speaking of making smarter food choices, Zoe membership helps you do just that with scientific solutions that let you listen to your gut. Listening to your gut starts with an at-home test kit that helps you understand your body's responses to food and the good and bad microbes in your gut. Then Zoe's app helps you build life-changing nutrition habits step by step.

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