- New study finds strong links between a healthy diet throughout life, so as to improve fitness and physical activity into older age.
It is all too easy to eat fast food and consumer more than we need – just look at the current politics surrounding sugary beverages, portion sizes, ease of eating out etc. However, all is not lost and there are some suggestions that even in later life, dietary changes can be made to improve overall health.
A new study assessed and monitored the dietary intakes of British people from their birth immediately after the Second World War in 1946. The study showed there was a strong link between maintaining a healthy diet throughout life and being physically fitter in later life.
The study conducted by scientists at the University of Southampton, looked at the long-term effect of a healthy diet during adulthood on physical function in older age. Data was gathered from 969 British men and women whose lifestyles were being monitored since they were born, in March 1946.
One general finding: people consuming what are regarded as nutritionally high quality foods such as fruit, vegetables and wholegrain cereals performed better in all the tests. Those eating less of these foods but enjoying more highly-processed foods did not perform the exercises as well.
The diet of all those participating was recorded at four stages of their life using 5-day food diaries (Mishra et al., 2003; Pot et al., 2015). These ages were 36, 43, 53, and 60-64 (2006 to 2010). The participants also performed three standard measures of physical activity at the age of 60 to 64. These three exercises were a chair rise, timed up-and-go speeds and a standing balance.
Chair rise: a test measuring the time taken to perform ten chair rises. Participants rise from a sitting to a standing position and back down again.
Timed up-and-go: A test assessing the time taken to rise from a chair, walk three metres at normal pace, turn around, return to the chair and sit down.
Standing balance: A test measuring the time a person can stand on one leg with their eyes closed up to a maximum of 30 seconds.
The results from these tests showed that those who improved their diet by the age of 60 to 64 fared better and were faster in two of the tests than when they had been younger on a less healthy diet. The one test that didn’t show a significant result was the ‘Timed up-and-go’ one although a check on the statistics suggests there was very modest improvement. The implication is that improving the diet even in early older age can still impact and improve exercise performance. This is also one of the first research studies to look at the long-term benefits of healthier diets as a person moves from adulthood to an older age.
The general conclusion would be that a healthy diet not only improves physical endurance and strength but that modifications in later life can still be of benefit irrespective of earlier types of diet. Frailty because of loss of musculo-skeletal function need not be a given if a better diet is observed. It would also be interesting to see if bone density and mass had also declined less given that fractures and bone weaknesses are also markers of frailty.
Reference
Sian M Robinson, PhD, Leo D Westbury, MSc, Rachel Cooper, PhD, Diana Kuh, PhD, Kate Ward, PhD, Holly E Syddall, PhD, Avan A Sayer, PhD FRCP, Cyrus Cooper, DM FRCP. (2017) Adult Lifetime Diet Quality and Physical Performance in Older Age: Findings From a British Birth Cohort .The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, glx179, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glx179
References
Mishra, G.D., Malik, N.S., Paul, A.A., Wadsworth, M.E., Bolton-Smith, C. (2003) Childhood and adult dietary vitamin E intake and cardiovascular risk factors in mid-life in the 1946 British Birth Cohort. Eur. J. Clin. Nutr . 57 pp. 1418–1425. doi: 10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601706.
Pot, G.K., Prynne, C.J., Almoosawi, S., Kuh, D., Stephen, A.M. (2015) NSHD scientific and data collection teams . Trends in food consumption over 30 years: evidence from a British birth cohort. Eur. J. Clin. Nutr. 69 pp. 817–823. doi: 10.1038/ejcn.2014.223
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