Abstract
Factors associated with frailty, particularly dietary patterns, are not fully understood in Mediterranean countries. This study aimed to investigate the association of data-driven dietary patterns with frailty prevalence in older Lebanese adults. We conducted a cross-sectional national study that included 352 participants above 60 years of age. Sociodemographic and health-related data were collected. Food frequency questionnaires were used to elaborate dietary patterns via the K-mean cluster analysis method. Frailty that accounted for 15% of the sample was twice as much in women (20%) than men (10%). Identified dietary patterns included a Westernized-type dietary pattern (WDP), a high intake/Mediterranean-type dietary pattern (HI-MEDDP), and a moderate intake/Mediterranean-type dietary pattern (MOD-MEDDP). In the multivariate analysis, age, waist to height ratio, polypharmacy, age-related conditions, and WDP were independently associated with frailty. In comparison to MOD-MEDDP, and after adjusting for covariates, adopting a WDP was strongly associated with a higher frailty prevalence in men (OR = 6.63, 95% (CI) (1.82–24.21) and in women (OR = 11.54, 95% (CI) (2.02–65.85). In conclusion, MOD-MEDDP was associated with the least prevalence of frailty, and WDP had the strongest association with frailty in this sample. In the Mediterranean sample, a diet far from the traditional one appears as the key deleterious determinant of frailty.
Highlights
The frailty phenotype is a multifactorial syndrome associated with aging, characterized by unintentional weight loss, self-reported exhaustion, muscular weakness, slow walking speed, and low physical activity [1]
Regarding nutritional status evaluated by mini-nutritional assessment (MNA)-SF, we identified a significant association with frailty, with a higher prevalence of poor nutritional status among frail individuals in both genders
Our study aimed at describing the prevalence of frailty and its associated factors, including dietary patterns, in a national sample of community dwelling older Lebanese individuals
Summary
The frailty phenotype is a multifactorial syndrome associated with aging, characterized by unintentional weight loss, self-reported exhaustion, muscular weakness, slow walking speed, and low physical activity [1]. Physical frailty is recognized as a risk factor for mortality, increased morbidity [2], malnutrition [2], and falls [3,4]. Frailty can lead to disability and dependency [5,6], and become a burden to the individual, caregivers, and public health authorities. This process, which moves from robustness to frailty, disability, dependency, is preventable, and could even improve in some aspects, if addressed in the early stages (i.e., in the prefrail state) [7,8,9,10]. Associations were found between frailty risk and marital status [11], education [12], depression [13], polypharmacy [14], and nutritional status [2,15]
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