Abstract
Background: The Mediterranean Diet has been proposed as an effective strategy to reduce inflammaging, a chronic low grade inflammatory status, and thus, to slow down the aging process. We evaluated whether a Mediterranean-like dietary pattern specifically targeting dietary recommendations of people aged over 65 years (NU-AGE diet) could be effective to shift dietary intake of older adults towards a healthful diet. Methods: Adults aged 65–80 years across five EU-centers were randomly assigned to a NU-AGE diet group or control group. The diet group followed one year of NU-AGE dietary intervention specifying consumption of 15 food groups plus the use of a vitamin D supplement. Participants in the diet group received counselling and individually tailored dietary advice, food products and a vitamin D supplement. Dietary intake was assessed by means of seven-day food records at baseline and one-year follow-up. A continuous NU-AGE index (0–160 points) was developed to assess NU-AGE diet adherence. Results: In total 1296 participants were randomized and 1141 participants completed the intervention (571 intervention, 570 control). After one year, the diet group improved mean intake of 13 out of 16 NU-AGE dietary components (p < 0.05), with a significant increase in total NU-AGE index (difference in mean change = 21.3 ± 15.9 points, p < 0.01). Conclusions: The NU-AGE dietary intervention, based on dietary recommendations for older adults, consisting of individual dietary counselling, free healthy foods and a vitamin D supplement, may be a feasible strategy to improve dietary intake in an aging European population.
Highlights
With aging of our populations [1], it is important to find modifiable strategies that slow down the aging process and its consequences in order to increase the number of years in good health in European elderly.One of the basic molecular mechanisms of aging is the development of a chronic, low-grade inflammation status, referred to as ‘inflammaging’ [2,3,4]
In the NU-AGE diet group the proportion of pre-frail participants was significantly higher compared to the control group (24% versus 18%, p < 0.01)
In the current study we demonstrated that following the one-year NU-AGE dietary intervention, comprising individual dietary counselling, provision of free healthy foods and a vitamin D supplement, the dietary intake of the elderly European population shifts more towards the NU-AGE food based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) for a healthy diet
Summary
With aging of our populations [1], it is important to find modifiable strategies that slow down the aging process and its consequences in order to increase the number of years in good health in European elderly.One of the basic molecular mechanisms of aging is the development of a chronic, low-grade inflammation status, referred to as ‘inflammaging’ [2,3,4]. Many studies have shown that altering dietary patterns is more effective to reduce disease risk than altering single nutrients [16,17,18,19,20,21]. The Mediterranean Diet has been proposed as an effective strategy to reduce inflammaging, a chronic low grade inflammatory status, and to slow down the aging process. We evaluated whether a Mediterranean-like dietary pattern targeting dietary recommendations of people aged over 65 years (NU-AGE diet) could be effective to shift dietary intake of older adults towards a healthful diet. The diet group followed one year of NU-AGE dietary intervention specifying consumption of 15 food groups plus the use of a vitamin D supplement. Dietary intake was assessed by means of seven-day food records at baseline and one-year follow-up
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