Age and Ageing 2018; 0: 1–8 © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afy105 All rights reserved. For permissions, please email:
[email protected] Low vitamin intake is associated with risk of frailty in older adults 1 2,3 2,3,4 2,3 TERESA BALBOA-CASTILLO ,ELLEN A. STRUIJK ,ESTHER LOPEZ-GARCIA ,JOSÉ R. BANEGAS , 2,3,4 2,3,4,5 FERNANDO RODRÍGUEZ-ARTALEJO ,PILAR GUALLAR-CASTILLON 1Department of Public Health—EPICYN Research Center, School of Medicine, Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco, Chile 2Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, School of Medicine, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid-IdiPaz, Madrid, Spain 3CIBERESP (CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health), Madrid, Spain 4IMDEA-Food Institute, CEI UAM+CSIC, Madrid, Spain 5Johns Hopkins Bloomerg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA Address correspondence to: T. Balboa-Castillo. Tel: +56 45 2734172; Fax: +56 45 2592139. Email:
[email protected] Abstract Background: the association between vitamin intake and frailty has hardly been studied. The objective was to assess the association of dietary vitamin intake with incident frailty in older adults from Spain. Methods: data came from a cohort of 1,643 community-dwelling individuals aged ≥65, recruited in 2008–10 and followed up prospectively throughout 2012. At baseline, 10 vitamins were assessed (vitamin A, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, vitamins B6, B12, C, D, E and folates) using a validated face-to-face diet history. Incident frailty was identified using Fried’sdefinition as having ≥3 of the following five criteria: unintentional weight loss of ≥4.5 kg, exhaustion, weakness, slow walking speed and low physical activity.