Abstract :
To investigate the relationships between previous diet, biomarkers of selected B vitamins,
nutritional status and length of stay. Design: Cross sectional study. Setting: Geriatric rehabilitation patients,
Sydney, Australia. Participants: Fifty two consenting patients with normal serum creatinine levels and no
dementia. Measurements: Serum vitamin B12, plasma vitamin B6, serum and erythrocyte folate, homocysteine
and methylmalonic acid (MMA) concentrations; dietary intake using a validated semi-quantitative food
frequency questionnaire and nutritional assessment using the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA). Length of
stay data were collected from medical records after discharge. Results: The age was 80 ± 8 year (mean ± SD),
BMI 26.4 ± 6.8 kg/m2 and MNA score 22 ± 3 indicating some risk of malnutrition. Deficiencies of vitamins B6,
B12 and folate were found in 30, 22 and 5 subjects respectively. Length of stay was positively correlated with
age and MMA (Spearman’s correlation 0.4, p<0.01 and 0.28, p<0.05 respectively) and negatively correlated with
albumin, vitamin B6 and MNA score (Spearman’s correlation -0.35, -0.33 and -0.29, p<0.05). After adjustment
for age and sex, ln vitamin B6 and ln MMA concentrations were significant in predicting ln LOS (p=0.006 and
p=0.014 respectively). Conclusion: The study indicates a high risk of vitamin B deficiencies in the elderly and
suggests that deficiencies of vitamins B6 and B12 are associated with length of stay. This is concerning as B
vitamin status is rarely fully assessed.
Keywords :
ELDERLY , Vitamin B12 , Vitamin B6 , folate. , Nutritional assessment
