Low Dietary Variety and Diabetes Mellitus Are Associated with Frailty among Community-Dwelling Older Japanese Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study

• Published in: Nutrients
• Main Authors: Misato Hayakawa, Keiko Motokawa, Yurie Mikami, Kaori Yamamoto, Maki Shirobe, Ayako Edahiro, Masanori Iwasaki, Yuki Ohara, Yutaka Watanabe, Hisashi Kawai, Motonaga Kojima, Shuichi Obuchi, Yoshinori Fujiwara, Hunkyung Kim, Kazushige Ihara, Hiroki Inagaki, Shoji Shinkai, Shuichi Awata, Atsushi Araki, Hirohiko Hirano
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2021
• Subjects: frailty; diabetes; Dietary Variety Score; DML
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13020641

The association between dietary diversity and frailty remains unknown in older people. We evaluated whether a limited dietary variety is associated with frailty in older adults with diabetes mellitus (DM). This cross-sectional investigation included 1357 adults (median age: 77 years, women: 61.3%). DM was determined by self-reporting, the Dietary Variety Score (DVS) was used to evaluate dietary variety, and the revised Japanese version of the Cardiovascular Health Study criteria evaluated frailty. Participants were divided into 4 groups: no DM/high DVS (non-DMHV), no DM/low DVS (non-DMLV), DM/high DVS (DMHV), and DM/low DVS (DMLV). The prevalence of frailty in each group was 3.6%, 6.7%, 6.7%, and 12.2%. After adjusting for covariates, logistic regression analysis revealed the highest odds ratio (OR) of frailty in the DMLV (non-DMLV, OR = 2.18 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.25–3.83); DMHV, OR = 1.87 (95% CI: 0.63–5.52); DML, OR = 5.03 (95% CI: 2.05–12.35)). Another logistic regression analysis revealed that a low DVS and DM were independently associated with frailty. Both a low dietary variety and DM were independently related to frailty in older people and the combination increased the prevalence of frailty. These findings suggest that high dietary variety could be important for the prevention of frailty in people with DM.