Influence of flavour enhancement on food liking and consumption in older adults with poor, moderate or high cognitive status

摘要

It is important to maintain adequate food consumption in older adults so as to prevent malnutrition, particularly among those with cognitive impairments who represent the majority of patients living in nursing homes. Indeed, these patients may reduce their food intake, which can be explained by a lack of pleasure in eating food. Few studies have tested the efficiency of strategies based on food pleasure to increase food intake in this population. To our knowledge, the influence of flavour enhancement has been widely investigated in non-cognitively impaired older adults, but not in those with cognitive impairments. Our objective was therefore to study the influence of flavour enhancement on food liking and then on food intake in older adults with different degrees of cognitive impairments. To achieve this, two food testing methods were compared: paired comparison and sequential monadic tests.