Association of Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Frailty among Chinese Elders: A Cross-Sectional Study in Three Cities

To examine the association of FVI and frailty in Chinese elders.

A sectional study was conducted in three cities (Shanghai, Zhengzhou, and Baoji) in China from June 2017 to June 2018.

A total of 5699 participants from 49 districts were included in the current study by two-stage sampling methods.

Frailty was measured by a validated Chinese version of the FRAIL scale. FVI per day was measured by two single questions.

The sample proportion with sufficient fruit intake was 36.7%, and 44.7% reported sufficient vegetable intake. The sample proportions that were robust, pre-frail, and frail were 43.6%, 38.3%, and 18.1%, respectively. Compared with low FVI, after including covariates, the odds ratio (OR) of frailty was 0.84 (95% CI: 0.73-0.97) for moderate fruit intake and 0.81 (95% CI: 0.70-0.94) for enough fruit intake; the OR of frailty was 0.83 (95% CI: 0.68-0.91) for moderate vegetable intake and 0.77 (95% CI: 0.64-0.93) for enough vegetable intake.

High FVI was negatively associated with the OR of frailty in Chinese elders. This finding implies it is important to promote FVI among adults to prevent frailty.