Do Aspects of Protein Intake Vary Across the Week in Healthy Community-Dwelling Older Adults?—An enable Study

Abstract

Various aspects of protein intake are thought to be crucial for the prevention of sarcopenia in older adults. Information about the day-to-day variation in these aspects is lacking. Our objective was to examine whether daily protein intake, protein distribution across meals, number of meals providing adequate protein, and protein sources vary across the week in healthy community-dwelling older adults. In 140 persons (51% women) that were aged 75–85 years, protein intake was assessed by seven-day food records. On average across the week, protein intake (median [IQR]) was 0.93 [0.79–1.10] g/kg body weight (BW) and the coefficient of variation across the three main meals was 0.50 [0.40–0.61]. The number of meals per day providing ≥0.4 g protein/kg BW was 0.57 [0.43–1.00] and 60.0 [52.4–65.2]% of protein intake was animal-based. According to Friedman’s test, differences throughout the week were observed in women for daily protein intake (p = 0.038; Sunday: 0.99 [0.78–1.31] vs. Tuesday: 0.79 [0.68–1.12] g/kg BW) and number of meals with adequate protein (p = 0.019; ≥1 daily meal: Sunday: 69.4% vs. Tuesday: 41.7%). On Sunday, protein intake was most in agreement with suggestions to prevent sarcopenia. In men, protein intake did not differ throughout the week.

Prevalence of low protein intake in 80+-year-old community-dwelling adults and association with dietary patterns and modifiable risk factors: a cross-sectional study

“…This is low compared to previous findings in community-dwelling adults 75-85 years where a weekly range between 30 and 60% was shown (17). However, participants with recent weight loss, very low or high BMI or several chronic conditions, including diabetes, lung diseases and heart conditions were excluded in the latter study (17). Hence, the greater proportion of meals with minimum protein content of 0.4 g/kg may reflect a more selected group of community-dwelling older adults (17).…”

“…Day-to-day variability in protein intake has previously been reported in community-dwelling older adults (17). The present study found that day-to-day and meal-to-meal variability in protein intake was significantly greater in the low protein group (Table 2) and that a high day-to-day variability (operationalized as >20%) was associated with higher odds of low protein intake ( Table 3).…”

“…In the present study only 25.4% of our population ingested at least one daily meal above this threshold. This is low compared to previous findings in community-dwelling adults 75-85 years where a weekly range between 30 and 60% was shown (17). However, participants with recent weight loss, very low or high BMI or several chronic conditions, including diabetes, lung diseases and heart conditions were excluded in the latter study (17).…”

“…However, participants with recent weight loss, very low or high BMI or several chronic conditions, including diabetes, lung diseases and heart conditions were excluded in the latter study (17). Hence, the greater proportion of meals with minimum protein content of 0.4 g/kg may reflect a more selected group of community-dwelling older adults (17). In the present study, participants with a low intake of protein had significant fewer meals meeting the threshold of maximally stimulatory protein intake compared to participants with normal intake of protein (Table 1).…”

“…Nevertheless, reaching such threshold on each main meal may be difficult. This was recently demonstrated in healthy community-dwelling adults age 75-85 years where the daily number of meals meeting this threshold varied from 0.43 to 1.0 (17). Hence, evidence suggests that dietary patterns are important for achieving optimal daily protein intake, but knowledge on the oldest old is limited.…”