Effect of Dietary Patterns on Muscle Strength and Physical Performance in the Very Old: Findings from the Newcastle 85+ Study.

Antoneta Granic,Avan Aihie Sayer,Thomas Kirkwood,Tom R Hill,Carol Jagger,Karen Davies,Mario Siervo,John C Mathers,Ashley Adamson,Sonia Brucki

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149699

Abstract

BackgroundHealthy diet has been associated with better muscle strength and physical performance in cross-sectional studies of older adults but the effect of dietary patterns (DP) on subsequent decline, particularly in the very old (aged 85+), has not been determined.ObjectiveWe investigated the association between previously established DP and decline in muscle strength and physical performance in the very old.Design791 participants (61.8% women) from the Newcastle 85+ Study were followed-up for change in hand grip strength (HGS) and Timed Up-and Go (TUG) test over 5 years (four waves 1.5 years apart). Mixed models were used to determine the effects of DP on muscle strength and physical performance in the entire cohort and separately by sex.ResultsPreviously we have established three DP that varied in intake of red meats, potato, gravy and butter and differed with key health and social factors. HGS declined linearly by 1.59 kgF in men and 1.08 kgF in women (both p<0.001), and TUG slowed by 0.13 log10-transformed seconds (log10-s) in men and 0.11 log10-s in women per wave after adjusting for important covariates (both p<0.001), and also showed a nonlinear change (p<0.001). Men in DP1 (‘High Red Meat’) had worse overall HGS (β = -1.70, p = 0.05), but men in DP3 (‘High Butter’) had a steeper decline (β = -0.63, p = 0.05) than men in DP2 (‘Low Meat’). Men in DP1 and women in DP3 also had overall slower TUG than those in DP2 (β = 0.08, p = 0.001 and β = 0.06, p = 0.01, respectively), but similar rate of decline after adjusting for sociodemographic, lifestyle, health, and functioning factors. The results for HGS and TUG were not affected by participants’ cognitive status.ConclusionsDP high in red meats, potato and gravy (DP1), or butter (DP3) may adversely affect muscle strength and physical performance in later life, independently of important covariates and cognitive status.

Highlights

Muscle strength and physical performance are important indicators of the health status of older adults [1,2,3,4]
Progressive decline in muscle strength and physical performance quantified by objective measures such as hand grip strength (HGS) [7] and the Timed Up-and-Go test (TUG) [8] is associated with poor health outcomes, disability, cognitive decline, frailty, malnutrition, risk of falls, and mortality in adults aged 65 and over [1,2,4,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16]
We examined the association between previously identified dietary patterns (DP1 (‘High Red Meat’), DP2 (‘Low Meat’), and DP3 (‘High Butter’)) [26] and change in muscle strength (HGS) and physical performance (TUG) across four measurement occasions (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Muscle strength and physical performance are important indicators of the health status of older adults [1,2,3,4]. A priori developed DP are based on predefined dietary scores for a specific diet or dietary guidelines, in which higher scores indicate heathier DP and a higher intake of beneficial foods (e.g. whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and fish). This approach is limited because it does not necessarily capture the complexity of whole diet, and because it relies on the current state of knowledge of what represents a healthy diet. Healthy diet has been associated with better muscle strength and physical performance in cross-sectional studies of older adults but the effect of dietary patterns (DP) on subsequent decline, in the very old (aged 85+), has not been determined

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Conclusion