Welcome back to this presentation.

Today we're talking about nutrition issues in older adults that impact well-being.

I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipez.

As we age, our body's nutritional needs change.

When we're infants, we need different nutrients and we need different amount, partly because

we're smaller, and when we're older, we need different nutrients and different amounts. Without adequate

nutrition, our body factory does not function. Nutrition is the building blocks. These are the inputs in our factory that are disassembled and

reassembled to make whatever we need, whether it's hormones or neurotransmitters or tissue or

neurons or whatever it is. Many older adults have nutrient deficiencies that contribute to inflammation,

blood sugar, cognitive, immunity, and mood issues. And we've talked about a lot of that in the previous

sections, that as soon as inflammation goes up, blood sugar goes up, cognition goes down, immunity

goes down, and mood can go all over the place, but people tend to become more irritable.

And one thing I didn't mention earlier, cognition, not only does inflammation contribute to cognitive issues, but when we are in

fight or flight, and I want you to think about a time where you've been scared witless,

where you're really thinking clearly, when you were in fighter flight, are you engaging

your prefrontal cortex, all those executive

functioning areas of your brain? The answer is no. We know from looking at brain scans that when

people are in fight or flight, they are trying to survive. They are not engaging higher

order thinking. So it makes it more difficult to think clearly,

to remember things, et cetera. Think about a time when you were grieving or traumatized again,

or just really stressed out for some reason. How was your memory? How clearly were you thinking?

How quickly were you thinking? How quickly were you thinking?

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