Many fear that the elderly will insist on fasting during the month of Ramadan, for fear that they will be exposed to complications that affect their health, especially with the end of winter and the significant rise in temperatures during daytime.
Dr. Emad El-Din Fahmy, a clinical nutrition consultant, explained to Sky News Arabia that there is no difference in fasting between the elderly and others, stressing that everyone can fast, young and old, as long as there is nothing to prevent it from a health point of view, but the elderly must take into account some important points:
• Coordinating with the doctor and referring to him to decide whether the state of health allows fasting or not.
Preparing the body some days before Ramadan so that the body can get used to fasting.
• Reduce physical effort during the day.
• Eat the full food rations of proteins, starches, and others at the time of breaking the fast, following Maghrib.
• Maintaining the glucose level without a decrease during the day, and maintaining the glucose level without a rise during the night.
• Ensure that the blood circulation during the day is healthy and not subject to depression.
• Ensure that blood pressure does not drop sharply during the day.
• Excessive fluid intake during the night to maintain an adequate level of fluid in the blood during the day, in order to prevent dehydration.
• Not to drink excessively tea and coffee at night, because they are diuretic fluids, and may cause thirst during the day.
• Do not ignore the pre-dawn meal.
• Strong interest in obtaining medicines on time, and arranging the process of taking them in Ramadan with the specialist doctor.
Fahmy advises some elderly people to beware of fasting in certain health cases:
• Kidney patients need water continuously so that the kidney can perform its tasks.
• Patients with liver disease and those with ascites.
• Those who are unable to control blood sugar levels.
And in the event that the doctor allows the elderly to fast, the therapeutic nutrition consultant explained that the fast must be broken in the event that certain symptoms appear on the fasting person:
• Feeling tired or constantly tired, or dizzy.
• Loss of ability to focus.
• vision disorders.
• Rapid heart rate.
• High temperatures.
• You must stop fasting quickly and drink water at the beginning.
Habits that reduce the benefits of fasting
Emad El-Din Fahmy pointed out that the phrase “fast, wake up” is medically correct, pointing out that fasting for long hours without water or food makes sick and aging cells dissolve, according to what is known as cell autolysis, and the continuation of the cell decomposition process for a month makes us finally go out. With young cells, he warned once morest some wrong behaviors that reduce the benefit of fasting, such as long sleep during the day until sunset, when the body does not make an effort to starve and decompose the cells, and a lot of sugars at night, which sick and aging cells feed on, so they remain present without decomposition.
