Changes in body composition

| What are the physical changes in older people? Among the most common are the loss of muscle mass, body fat and water.

Some of the typical changes in older people are those that occur at the level of muscle mass, fat and body water. Despite being one of the most important in determining the balance of the internal environment and the level of dependency, they are the least perceived changes.

muscles

muscles are the structures that are responsible for giving movement to the body by the orders they receive from the nervous system; They give stability to the static posture and are one of the largest reserves of proteins in the body, since they are formed by them.

In the elderly there is a loss of muscle mass that can be up to 40%. This implies greater difficulty in performing motor functions, less resistance to exercise and is one of the main determining factors of dependency in older people.

The causes of this loss are multiple and also enhance each other. The main ones are:

• Decreased protein intake and malnutrition.
• Decrease in physical exercise: sedentary life, limiting chronic diseases (respiratory, cardiac, osteoarticular, etc.).
• Endocrine disorders (diabetes, thyroid problems, etc.).
• Decreased direct nerve stimulation to the muscle.
• Use of certain drugs (corticosteroids, diuretics, etc.)

Body fat and water

With age the proportion of water in the body progressively decreases; in youth, water represents approximately 70% of body mass, while from 65 years of age it can decrease up to 50%.

This loss is supposed to be due mainly to the decrease in intracellular water in all the body's tissues, as well as to the alteration of renal function, with a lower renal capacity to concentrate urine (that is, a lower capacity to save water bodily). One of the main consequences of these events is the ease of older people to become dehydrated, which worsens when the sensation of thirst is diminished.

With regard to fat, there is an increase in it that is proportional to the decrease in muscle mass. Fat is distributed differently than it is in young people, predominantly in the trunk as well as intra-abdominal level (around the viscera) and decreasing in the extremities. As a consequence, there may be problems in maintaining body temperature and an alteration in the metabolism of many drugs.