Highlights Coronovirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has serious implications for older adults. Qualitative analysis of an online discussion by older adults with frailty. We analyzed 60 posts using a general inductive analytic method. Themes included impacts on daily life, perceptions, information, and technology use. Our study provides insight into ways to support older adults in pandemics.

BackgroundHigh body mass index (BMI) has become the leading risk factor of disease burden in high-income countries. While recent studies have suggested that the risk of cancer related to obesity is mediated by time, insights into the dose-response relationship and the cumulative impact of overweight and obesity during the life course on cancer risk remain scarce. To our knowledge, this study is the first to assess the impact of adulthood overweight and obesity duration on the risk of cancer in a large cohort of postmenopausal women.Methods and FindingsParticipants from the observational study of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) with BMI information from at least three occasions during follow-up, free of cancer at baseline, and with complete covariate information were included (n = 73,913). Trajectories of BMI across ages were estimated using a quadratic growth model; overweight duration (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2), obesity duration (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2), and weighted cumulative overweight and obese years, which take into account the degree of overweight and obesity over time (a measure similar to pack-years of cigarette smoking), were calculated using predicted BMIs. Cox proportional hazard models were applied to determine the cancer risk associated with overweight and obesity duration. In secondary analyses, the influence of important effect modifiers and confounders, such as smoking status, postmenopausal hormone use, and ethnicity, was assessed. A longer duration of overweight was significantly associated with the incidence of all obesity-related cancers (hazard ratio [HR] per 10-y increment: 1.07, 95% CI 1.06–1.09). For postmenopausal breast and endometrial cancer, every 10-y increase in adulthood overweight duration was associated with a 5% and 17% increase in risk, respectively. On adjusting for intensity of overweight, these figures rose to 8% and 37%, respectively. Risks of postmenopausal breast and endometrial cancer related to overweight duration were much more pronounced in women who never used postmenopausal hormones. This study has limitations because some of the anthropometric information was obtained from retrospective self-reports. Furthermore, data from longitudinal studies with long-term follow-up and repeated anthropometric measures are typically subject to missing data at various time points, which was also the case in this study. Yet, this limitation was partially overcome by using growth curve models, which enabled us to impute data at missing time points for each participant.ConclusionsIn summary, this study showed that a longer duration of overweight and obesity is associated with an increased risk of developing several forms of cancer. Furthermore, the degree of overweight experienced during adulthood seemed to play an important role in the risk of developing cancer, especially for endometrial cancer. Although the observational nature of our study precludes inferring causality or making clinical recommendations, our findings suggest that reducing overweight duration in adulthood could reduce cancer ri...

Introduction The Mediterranean and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diets have been associated with lower dementia risk. We evaluated dietary inflammatory potential in relation to mild cognitive impairment (MCI)/dementia risk. Methods Baseline food frequency questionnaires from n = 7085 women (aged 65–79 years) were used to calculate Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) scores that were categorized into four groups. Cognitive function was evaluated annually, and MCI and all-cause dementia cases were adjudicated centrally. Mixed effect models evaluated cognitive decline on over time; Cox models evaluated the risk of MCI or dementia across DII groups. Results Over an average of 9.7 years, there were 1081 incident cases of cognitive impairment. Higher DII scores were associated with greater cognitive decline and earlier onset of cognitive impairment. Adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) comparing lower (anti-inflammatory; group 1 referent) DII scores to the higher scores were group 2-HR: 1.01 (0.86–1.20); group 3-HR: 0.99 (0.82–1.18); and group 4-HR: 1.27 (1.06–1.52). Conclusions Diets with the highest pro-inflammatory potential were associated with higher risk of MCI or dementia.

Higher glucose levels may be a risk factor for frailty in older adults without diabetes. The apparent U-shape association between glucose levels and frailty in people with diabetes is consistent with the literature on glycemia and mortality and deserves further examination.