Abstract
The regular use of medication may interfere with micronutrient metabolism on several levels, such as absorption, turnover rate, and tissue distribution, and this might be amplified during aging. This study evaluates the impact of self-reported medication intake on plasma micronutrients in the MARK-AGE Project, a cross-sectional observational study in 2217 subjects (age- and sex-stratified) aged 35–75 years from six European countries that were grouped according to age. Polypharmacy as possible determinant of micronutrient concentrations was assessed using multiple linear regression models adjusted for age-group, dietary fruit, vegetables, and juice intake, and other confounders. Younger participants reported taking fewer drugs than older participants. Inverse associations between medication intake and lutein (−3.31% difference per increase in medication group), β-carotene (−11.44%), α-carotene (−8.50%) and positive associations with retinol (+2.26%), α-tocopherol/cholesterol (+2.89%) and γ-tocopherol/cholesterol (+1.36%) occurred in multiple adjusted regression models. Combined usage of a higher number of medical drugs was associated with poorer status of carotenoids on the one hand and higher plasma concentrations of retinol, α- and γ-tocopherol on the other hand. Our results raise concerns regarding the safety of drug combinations via the significant and surprisingly multifaceted disturbance of the concentrations of relevant micronutrients.
Highlights
While the mean life expectancy continues to rise, this is seemingly not accompanied by an increase in health span
We found that 47.7% of participants reported taking “no meds” and 21.9% stated taking at least three meds
The main conclusions from the present study are that the use of medication is widespread among middle-aged and older people in six European countries and that this medication intake is associated with plasma micronutrient concentrations, even after adjusting for confounders
Summary
While the mean life expectancy continues to rise, this is seemingly not accompanied by an increase in health span. There is intense scientific interest in finding strategies to enable ‘dynamic aging’, which means to increase health span by reducing the time period during which a person is ill or disabled. One strategy could be an optimized nutrition, since diet may be a safe, practical, realistic and cheap intervention to increase health span, as shown by protective effects of higher plasma concentrations and dietary intake of lipid-soluble micronutrients against age-related diseases [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. In a recent study on European subjects (35–75 years) from the general population, we observed that age was negatively associated with concentrations of some fat-soluble micronutrients, even after adjusting for season, anthropometric data, cholesterol and dietary intake [8,9] and confirmed these findings in a German cohort [10]. One confounder could be the effect of medication, and further, the underlying diseases for which medication is used
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