Gerontological aspects of healthy nutrition

Balanced and rational nutrition is an integral part of the multifaceted concept of health and longevity. In the first half of life, the impact of irrational nutrition is usually compensated by the functional activity of all organs and systems that support the effective activity of the body, but over the years, and especially in people of the older age group, the reserve capacity of the gastrointestinal tract, endocrine, cardiovascular and metabolic systems have limited ability to provide the necessary balance of homeostasis. A lot of attention has always been paid to the issues of healthy nutrition and the formulation of individual diets in various borderline and pathological conditions, both in scientific works and in popular educational publications. The nutritional component in the field of a healthy lifestyle, especially after 60 years, is associated with important gerontological aspects of the body’s functioning in conditions of slowed self-renewal of tissues and altered metabolic processes. At the same time, the mechanisms of intensification of free radical reactions and oxidant stress become important, namely the response of cells to an increased level of reactive oxygen species and, as a result, an imbalance between the production and detoxification processes. Irregular nutrition leads to lipid and carbohydrate metabolism disorders, accelerates aging processes due to the transport of fatty acids from tissues to meet the body’s energy needs, increases the amount of catecholamines in the blood and changes hormonal homeostasis, provoking the premature development of atherosclerosis, hypertension, diabetes and obesity. In recent decades, the Mediterranean diet, which consists of products of sea origin and various vegetables and fruits, has gained popularity. The advantage of the proposed diet is its ease of digestion, it is rich in trace elements and vitamins, and the content of fats and proteins is most balanced.