CAUSES OF INVOLUNTARY WEIGHT LOSS IN THE ELDERLY.

CAUSES OF INVOLUNTARY WEIGHT LOSS IN THE ELDERLY.
JournalWatch

Elderly patients who lose weight involuntarily for no apparent reason present difficult diagnostic and management problems. To examine the causes of unexplained weight loss, these researchers identified 45 such patients in a computer search of about 10,000 ambulatory elderly patients in seven U.S. family practice centers. Investigators reviewed the charts and, when appropriate, contacted the patients' physicians.

A specific cause of weight loss was eventually identified in 76 percent of patients, but 24 percent had received no specific diagnosis after at least two years. The most common diagnoses were depression (18 percent) and cancer (16 percent). Gastrointestinal diseases (other than cancer), hyperthyroidism, medications, and neurologic diseases accounted for an additional 36 percent of diagnoses. Four patients died during the two-year study period, all from cancer.

This study, although limited in size, suggests that the most common cause of persistent weight loss in the elderly is not occult malignancy, as commonly thought. The authors emphasize the importance of a careful history, including an adequate nutritional and medication record, in the diagnosis of involuntary weight loss in elderly patients.

â€” PCB

Published in Journal Watch General Medicine May 24, 1991

Citation(s):
Thompson MP; Morris LK. Unexplained weight loss in the ambulatory elderly. J Am Geriatr Soc 1991 May 39 497-500.

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Copyright Â© 1991. Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.