Recommended dietary intakes of elderly subjects

Various authors have criticized the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) because they do not include values for elderly subjects. It is argued here that such values would not be useful. The large majority of elderly subjects have one or more diagnosed diseases, drug consumption is high, etc, and it is unlikely that specific dietary standards for such a group could be developed or would be useful. More importantly, I argue that the RDA do not and cannot do most of the things which dietary standards ought to do, and their use generates considerable misinformation. It is time to reconsider the whole issue of dietary standards. It is not clear that elderly subjects who do not require therapeutic diets need to consume a diet which differs from that of the rest of the population.