The Effect of Web-Based Culinary Medicine to Enhance Protein Intake on Muscle Quality in Older Adults: Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Sarcopenia is the progressive and generalized loss of muscle mass, strength, and function. In the US, 15.51% of older adults have been diagnosed with sarcopenia. Culinary medicine (CM) is a novel evidence-based medical field that combines the science of medicine with food and cooking to prevent and treat potential chronic diseases. Thus, a CM program can be an innovative strategy to improve protein intake in independent older adults through at-home cooking and successfully reduce barriers to protein intake, enabling older adults to enhance their diet and muscle quality. OBJECTIVE Therefore, our study aimed to examine how an online CM intervention, emphasizing convenient ways to increase lean red meat intake, could improve protein intake with the promotion of physical activity to see how this intervention could affect older adults’ muscle strength and mass. METHODS A 16-week single-center, parallel-group, randomized study was conducted, comparing an online culinary medicine intervention group (CMG) teaching about enhancing protein intake to a control group (CNG) while monitoring each group’s muscle strength, muscle mass, and physical activity for muscle quality. The final participant total for the data analysis was 24 in the CMG and 23 in the CNG. RESULTS No between-group difference in muscle mass (p = 0.881) and strength (dominant: p = 0.920 and non-dominant: p = 0.715) change from the pre-study was detected. No statistically significant difference in protein intake was seen between the groups (p = 0.498). A borderline non-significant time-by-intervention interaction was observed for daily protein intake (p = 0.08). However, a statistically significant time effect was observed (p = <0.001). Post hoc testing showed that daily protein intake was significantly higher at weeks 2-16 vs. week 1 (p < 0.05) in the cohort. At week 16, intake was 16.9 g (95% CI, 5.77 to 27.97) higher than at pre-study. CONCLUSIONS A CM program aimed to enhance protein intake and muscle quality did not affect protein intake and muscle quality. Insufficient consistent protein intake, low physical activity, intervention adherence, and questionnaires’ accuracy could explain the results. Future studies could include an interdisciplinary staff, different recruitment strategies, and different muscle mass measurements. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05593978