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 Researchers followed 2,154 older U.S. adults for four years. At the
start, participants were between the ages of 70 and 81. They were
either "robust," because they didn't appear to have any cognitive
problems or issues with physical frailty, or "pre-frail," because
they only had one or two symptoms of frailty.
Overall, 277 participants became frail. And among the 1,020 who
started out in robust condition, 629 either became frail or
developed pre-frailty.
People with poor quality diets were almost twice as likely as those
with high-quality diets to become frail, and a medium-quality diet
was associated with a 40% higher risk of frailty.
"A good-quality diet may reduce the risk of frailty," said Linda
Milou Hengeveld, lead author of the study and a researcher at Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
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"It is hypothesized that protein intake may also be important to
reduce frailty risk, because sufficient protein intake is important
to slow down the loss of muscle mass and strength that occurs with
aging," Henveveld said by email.
But that's not what the study found.
Lower vegetable protein intake was associated with a higher risk of
"robust" people developing "pre-frailty," but it didn't appear to
influence whether they developed full-blown frailty. There was no
meaningful difference in frailty risk based on total protein intake,
animal protein intake or total calories consumed.
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