Design and Development of a Functional Plant-based Beverage Formulated According to the Main Nutritional Guides for Early Elderly Requirements to Improve Nutritional Status and Immunity for the Early Elderly People to Get Well-healthy Ageing

Populations around the world are aging and this demographic transition will impact almost every aspect of society. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the seriousness of gaps in policies, systems and services. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) plan for 2021-2030, a decade of concerted global action on healthy ageing is urgently needed to ensure that older people can realize their potential in dignity and equality in nutritional requirements. An effective way to address the inherent demographic change, which translates into the health status of older people, is through the maintenance of adequate nutritional status. Public health services require new funding to address this problem, but if we bring new strategies to health policies, by improving nutrition, we could impact the reduction of costs at the level of medical care in the ageing population. In older people, according to the latest guidelines on nutritional requirements in geriatrics from the Spanish Nutrition Foundation (FEN), the British Nutrition Foundation and The European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN), multinutrient strategies instead of mononutrient strategies, are gaining importance due to relevant scientific evidence based on controlled and randomized clinical trials. Therefore, following the nutritional requirements in healthy ageing, an important aspect is to strengthen immunity in this population.

Consequently, the food industry is booming in the development of new functional alternatives, such as plant-based beverages, which are well positioned in the market and can offer healthy functional beverage options to people of early elderly age (60 to 75 years) as a target population due to the ease with which they are ingested. Therefore, investments in small and medium-sized companies to encourage the incorporation of trained doctoral personnel and add innovation value to this type of product are essential for resilience.

Therefore, the present proposal hypothesizes that, following the nutritional needs for healthy ageing, a multinutrient-optimized beverage as a functional food can improve immunity and reduce inflammation and oxidation in women and men in the elderly population.