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Nutritional Status of the Aging¹

III. Serum Ascorbic Acid and Intake

Six Figures

California Agricultural Experiment Station, University of California, Berkeley

The serum ascorbic acid levels, 7-day records of ascorbic acid intake and physical condition, particularly of teeth and gums, were obtained for 569 supposedly healthy men and women over 50 years of age. All of these were living in their own homes except for 44 men over 60 years old living in the county home. The serum levels and daily intake values were grouped for men and women separately in 5 year age groups from 50 to more than 80 years of age.

The women at all ages had higher serum ascorbic acid levels than the men, means 1.07 ± 0.08 and 0.83 ± 0.08 mg% respectively. In both sexes a maximum was noted in the age group 60 to 64 years. The total daily intakes of the men however were greater at all ages, means 99 ± 0.10 mg for the men and 86 ± 0.08 for the women. The daily intakes per kilogram of body weight were 1.36 ± 0.14 and 1.28 ± 0.12 mg. Expressed thus the difference in intakes was not significant.

The 44 men in the county home had only 0.27 ± 0.06 mg% serum ascorbic acid and 40 mg total daily intake or 0.62 mg per kilogram of body weight.

A direct correlation, r = + 0.46, was found between the serum levels and intakes of the whole group. Seventy to 75% of all men and women having less than 0.5 or 0.7 mg% of serum ascorbic acid respectively were in the lowest intake group with less than 69 mg of ascorbic acid in their daily food. Conversely 75% of the men and 50% of the women with intakes of this lowest level had serum ascorbic acid levels also in the lowest brackets.

An approximation of economic level was recorded with 44 men in the county home in one group, those on relief and old age assistance rolls in a second group, total 146 persons, the middle income group of 396 persons in another and those in the highest income group, 23 persons, in a 4th group. The mean serum ascorbic acid levels of these 4 groups progressed from low to high in this same order. Ninety-one per cent of the men in the county home, 40% of those on relief and old age pensions, 21% of those with the middle incomes and none of those with the high incomes had serum levels less than 0.5 mg%.

Vitamin supplements which might have contained ascorbic acid were taken more or less regularly by 18% of the men and 11% of the women but these additions were not included in the intake calculations.

Thirty-nine per cent of the people examined were edentulous, 17% had gingivitis in some degree and 43% had teeth and no gum pathology. There was a consistently greater proportion, 24% of the edentulous and of those with gingivitis in the group with serum ascorbic acid below 0.3 mg% than of those with healthy mouths, 9%. A higher proportion of those with teeth and healthy gums, 54%, was found in the group with the higher serum levels, over 0.7 mg%. Thirty-four per cent were edentulous and 12% had gingivitis in this group.

The ascorbic acid requirement of men beyond 50 years of age appears to be significantly greater than that of women.

Manuscript received 10 May 1954.