Poor Diet Quality Tied to Frailty in Older Adults

A new study suggests that a poor-quality diet may lead to increased frailty among older adults, reports Reuters Health . Researchers tracked more than 2,000 American seniors for four years to measure how their physical condition changed. Participants were either classified as "robust" or "pre-frail," meaning they had one or two symptoms of frailty, at the start of the study. Frailty symptoms included unintentional weight loss, weak hand grip, joint pain, daytime exhaustion, and physical inactivity. During its run, 629 of the adults who started out robust became either frail or pre-frail, with 277 total participants becoming frail. Those adults with poor-quality diets were twice as likely to become frail as those with high-quality diets, while medium-quality diets correlated with a 40 percent likelihood of frailty. Though it has long been hypothesized that low protein intake contributes to frailty, the researchers found something slightly different. Low vegetable protein intake was correlated with a change from robust to pre-frail, but did not appear to have a significant bearing on developing full frailty. Still, "even if it is not certain that higher protein intake prevents the development of frailty, sufficient protein intake is important for older persons to maintain their muscle mass and strength," said the study's lead author, Linda Milou Hengeveld.