Dietary Patterns and Self-reported Incident Disability in Older Adults

Disability in older adults is associated with low quality of life and higher mortality. Diet may be a potentially important public health strategy for disability prevention in aging. We examined the relations of the Mediterranean, Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), and Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diets to functional disability in the Rush Memory and Aging Project.

A total of 809 participants (mean age = 80.7 ± 7.2 years, 74% female) without functional disability at baseline were followed for an average of 5.3 years. Standardized measures for self-reported disability including, activities of daily living ADL), instrumental ADL, and mobility disability were assessed annually. The diet scores were computed based on a validated food frequency questionnaire administered at baseline.

In Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for age, sex, education, smoking, physical activity, and total calories, the second (hazard ratio = 0.75, 95% CI: 0.60-0.95) and third tertiles (hazard ratio = 0.67, 95% CI: 0.53-0.86) of MIND diet scores had lower rates of ADL disability compared to the lowest tertile (p for trend = .001), whereas only the third tertiles of the Mediterranean (hazard ratio = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.57-0.94) and DASH (hazard ratio = 0.75, 95% CI: 0.59-0.95) diets were significantly associated with ADL disability. Instrumental ADL disability was inversely and linearly associated with the MIND diet score only (p for trend = .04). Mobility disability was associated with the MIND (p for trend = .02), Mediterranean (p for trend = .05) and DASH (p for trend = .02) diet scores.

These findings are encouraging that diet may be an effective strategy for the prevention of functional disability in older adults.