Association of dietary diversity and falls among Chinese people aged 65 years and above in 2018

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To estimate the prevalence of falls and examine the association between the dietary diversity and falls among older Chinese adults. We used data from the 2018 Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey(CLHLS), a nationwide survey with 10 698 adults aged ≥65 years old in 23 provinces of China. Dietary diversity score(DDS) was constructed based on 11 items of a food frequency questionnaire. Participants were assigned into 4 groups(Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4) according to the quartile of DDS. The outcome observed was the incidence of fall in the past year acquired by questionnaire. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the association between DDS and the risk of falls in the elderly. Among the 10 698 participants, 4686(43.8%) were male, and 6012(56.2%) were female, with a mean(SD) age of 85.03(11.8).6191(57.9%) of them were came from urban. Fall was reported by 22.9% of the 10698 participants. After adjustment for age, sex, ethnicity, educational background, marital status, residence, sufficient income, smoking, drinking, regular exercise, sleep duration, Precentral obesity and central obesity, vision impairment, disability, nervous system diseases, and arthritis diseases, compared to the Q1 of DDS, OR were 0.83(95% CI 0.74-0.94) for Q2, 0.85(95% CI 0.74-0.97) for Q3, and 0.76(95% CI 0.66-0.81) for Q4(P_(trend)<0.01). In addition, a significant association was observed between higher consumption of fresh vegetables, fresh fruits and beans, with lower risk of falls, OR were 0.76(95% CI 0.66-0.87), 0.81(95% CI 0.73-0.89) and 0.88(95% CI 0.80-0.96), respectively. A higher DDS was associated with a lower risk of falls in the Chinese aged 65 years and above.