UNC School of Medicine researchers led a study to determine risk factors associated with malnutrition among older adults receiving care in the emergency department. The study, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, suggests that food scarcity and poor oral health are major risk factors for malnutrition that leads an older adult -- already at high risk of functional decline, decreased quality of life, and increased mortality -- to land in the emergency department.

Of the risk factors studied, poor oral health was found to have the largest impact on malnutrition. More than half of the patients in the study had some dental problems, and patients with dental problems were three times as likely to suffer from malnutrition as those without dental problems.

Read the article at sciencedaily.com