Aim: This study targeted institutionalized elderly people with Alzheimer's disease to obtain basic data for examining appropriate methods of diet support and intervention by clarifying the differences in body composition and nutritional status according to severity of dementia.

Methods: Among the institutionalized elderly people, 301 persons diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease took part in the research.Survey items included basic information, dementia severity, body composition, diagnosis of malnutrition, dietary variety, appetite, and activities of daily living.

Results: The evaluation indexes related to body composition and nutritional status were examined using a clinical dementia rating. As a result, signiicant differences were observed in terms of body mass index (BMI), skeletal muscle mass index (SMI), fat-free mass index (FFMI), Mini Nutritional Assessment^®-Short Form scores, dietary variety scores, Council on Nutrition Appetite Questionnaire scores, calf circumference, and basal metabolic rate only in the female subjects. The person had the lowest value in the group of severe dementia.

Conclusion: In elderly people with Alzheimer's disease, evaluating their physical conditions on the basis of BMI alone has limitations from the viewpoint of accuracy of evaluation of body composition. Thus, detailed evaluation of body composition including SMI and FFMI will contribute to the quality of prognosis in these patients.

Objective: To clarify a possible role for nutrition support in antiviral triple-drug therapy including telaprevir, we prospectively examined the changes in nutrition variables during the 24-week time course of this treatment.

Patients and methods: One hundred and ten consecutive patients with hepatitis C virusl genotype 1 infection who were admitted to our hospital between January 2012 and May 2013 were enrolled in this study. All patients started therapy in hospital and nutrition support intervention commenced simultaneously.

Results: A loss of appetite was observed in 84.2% (92/110) of patients. The largest decrease in appetite was seen at 2 to 3 weeks after the start of therapy but was smoothly restored by dose reduction or termination of telaprevir use. Nutritional support signiicantly increased estimated energy (1356 ± 388 kcal to 1485 ± 353 kcal, P<0.01) and lipid intake (34.3±13.6 g to 43.2±10.7 g, P<0.01) in patients at the time of appetite loss. Treatment completion rate was 94% (103/110) and the rate of sustained virologic response was 86.3%.

Conclusion: Loss of appetite is observed with high frequency in telaprevir-treated patients. Team medical care including nutrition support is necessary for completion of this therapy.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of synbiotics administration for digestive system side effects in patients treated with chemotherapy.

Eighteen patients with primary lung, gastric, and colon cancer treated with chemotherapy were allocated to the two groups; one group (9 patients) received synbiotics before and during chemotherapy, and the other (9 patients) did not. The frequency of digestive symptoms, compliance with chemotherapy, weight, dietary intake and plasma diamine oxidase (DAO) activity were assessed.

Patients in the synbiotics group showed less in anorexia (grade 2 or higher, p = 0.041). Furthermore, decrease in DAO activity was less, body weight was maintained (p = 0.048) and chemotherapy dosage was kept in the synbiotics group.

In conclusion, synbiotics administration in patients treated with chemotherapy may be less in anorexia and maintain ideal body weight as well as compliance with chemotherapy.

Purpose: Sarcopenia is defined as decreased skeletal muscle mass in elderly people. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the volume of psoas major muscle.

Subjects and Methods: We reviewed the data of five-hundred patients between 2012 and 2015, and measured the psoas major muscle volume (PV) with 3 dimensional-CT, and assessed correlations between PV and ageing, or nutritional parameters.

Results: The mean PV was 295.7 cm³ in male and 165.2 cm³ mL in female, respectively. PV was highly associated with aging and BSA (body surface area) negatively. We made a calculating formula based on gender, generation and BSA (male: 20-40s PV = 403.09 × BSA – 290.63, 50s PV = 269.82 × BSA – 138.83, 60-90s PV = 348.42 × BSA – 329.31, female: 20-30s PV = 233.73 × BSA – 106.12, 40-90s PV = 200.50 × BSA – 135.42). Patients with sarcopenia group, whose real PV using 3D-CT was less than 80% of calculated PV using the formula had significantly lower nutritional parameters than patients without sarcopenia.

Conclusion: Our findings indicate that PV using 3D-CT could be useful for nutrition assessment.