European Consortium, APPETITE recruits first participants.

The AGE research group has recently been awarded funding to be part of a new European consortium APPETITE (Innovative plAnt Protein fibre and Physical activity solutions to address poor appEtite and prevenT undernutrITion in oldEr adults) under the Joint Programming Initiative PREVNUT call. Poor appetite is common in older age and associated with poorer health. However, causes of declining appetite are poorly understood and treatment options are currently limited.

APPETITE brings together experts from eight institutions in six European countries to collaborate on a three-year research programme.  The programme includes five linked work packages, starting with work with older adults to improve understanding of the experience of poor appetite, and progressing to the development and testing of novel foods in later phases of the research. The overall aim of APPETITE is to prevent undernutrition in older populations by developing new approaches to enhance appetite through targeted nutrition and physical activity.

The first phase of the programme is being carried out in Newcastle.  Working with VOICE, we have set up an advisory panel to help guide the research and, over the next few months, we will be inviting a group of older adults who have poor appetite to take part in in one-to-one interviews. We are really appreciative of the interest we have had in this new research programme - enabling us to start the interviews with our first participants this week. 

Lorelle Dismore, Research Assistant working on the project explains why this work is important: “Poor appetite is often reported by older adults but is poorly understood. Working with this group will give us a better understanding of their experiences and the factors affecting poor/declining appetite which will help us in designing future interventions”.
Professor Sian Robinson, who is leading the Newcastle work package, commented: “Appetite screening is not part of routine healthcare, and there are limited prevention and treatment options to support older adults. We are delighted to be working with European colleagues on APPETITE and the opportunity to be part of this important collaboration”.

Further information

If you would like to hear more about this research updates will be posted here on the AGE website and you can follow the APPETITE programme on Twitter @APPETITE_JPI.

Last modified: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 10:50:55 BST