Older Age and Worse Nutritional State Were Related with Impaired Inflammatory Response in Elderly Patients

Background: Ageing process is related with multisystem disorders. One of them is immune response impairment. It is imperative to evaluate the association between age and related nutritional status with inflammatory response in elderly patient. Methods: A cross sectional study to evaluate inflammatory response among elderly patients (≥60 years) at Geriatric Out-patient Clinic, Sanglah Hospital was conducted. Seventy-two patients were enrolled in the study. Age, nutritional states (body mass index and mini nutritional assessment), and inflammatory markers (interleukin-2 [IL-2] and C-reactive protein [CRP]) and other anthropometric as well as laboratory parameters were measured in the study. Results: In the study it was revealed that age has a moderately negative correlation with both of plasma IL-2 and serum CRP levels (R= -0.305, p=0.009; and R= -0.413, p=0.005, respectively). Plasma IL-2 levels were positively correlated with several variables like body mass index (R=0.282, p=0.016), mini nutritional assessment (R=0.237, p=0.045), biceps skin fold (R=0.291, p=0.013), and triceps skin fold (R=0.258, p=0.028). While serum CRP levels has positive correlation with lying diastolic blood pressure (R=0.345, p=0.020) and negative correlation with calf circumference (R=-0.312, p=0.037). No significant associations were found between diabetes and hypertension with inflammatory markers. Conclusion: This study concluded that older age and worse nutritional state were related to worse inflammatory response in the elderly patients.