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To the Editor: Hospitalized elderly patients have a relatively high risk for malnutrition.¹ While some of this problem may be related to factors such as preexisting malnutrition, lack of appetite, or inability to eat, it is not known to what degree clinically indicated restricted diets contribute to such deficiencies.

Methods

We analyzed commonly prescribed diets served in 2 US hospitals. One was a large private not-for-profit academic research-oriented medical center serviced by a well-known commercially contracted hospital food service and the other was a large metropolitan Veterans Affairs medical center with an in-house dietary department. Amounts of ingredients for recipes for every item served in the 7 prescribed meal plans in both hospitals were recorded in a comprehensive database that allowed precise nutritional analyses by weight of food serving. The data included ingredients used in literally thousands of recipes; for instance, 1 hospital had more than 50 different recipes for green . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Jonelle E. Wright, PhD
jonelle-wright@ouhsc.edu
Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatric Medicine

Garth J. Willis, MHS
University of Oklahoma College of Medicine
Oklahoma City

Marilyn S. Edwards, PhD, RD
Department of Internal Medicine
University of Texas Medical School
Houston