Introduction:
Cognitive impairment (CI) in older adults refers to impairment in cognition function
beyond normal aging. Previous studies have reported the effect of dietary antioxidants,
especially flavonoids on cognitive function in older adults, suggesting that high
dietary flavonoids intake may reduce the risk of cognitive impairment. However, most
of these studies were reported in Caucasian older populations in Western countries.
Moreover, some studies were positive, which others were negative studies. There was
no previous study regarding dietary flavonoids and cognitive impairment among
Chinese older adults.
Objectives:
The objectives of this study were to explore the association between dietary
intake flavonoids and the risk of cognitive impairment in Chinese older adults, and to
identify the independent factors associated with the risk of cognitive impairment in
Chinese older adults.
Method:
This study was a retrospective cross-sectional study, 200 patients who fulfilled the
inclusion and exclusion criteria and gave written informed consent were recruited
from the Geriatric clinics in Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong, from 11th July to 31st
October 2011. All recruited subjects were invited to attend face-to-face interviews.
Brief cognitive assessments by the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and
Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) were done for all subjects. Every subject
also answered a detailed questionnaire on socio-demographic, type and frequency of
diet items (food frequency questionnaire) and co-morbid diseases.
Main outcome measure:
The primary outcome measure was cognitive function, using an education-adjusted
MMSE cut-off s to categorize the subjects into two groups (i.e. normal cognitive
group and cognitively impaired group).
Results:
200 subjects were recruited, 104 participants (37 males and 67 females) were in the
normal cognitive group and 96 subjects (22 males and 74 females) were in the
cognitively impaired group. The mean amount of dietary flavonoids intake of the
cognitively normal group was higher than that of the cognitively impaired group (i.e.
291.84 grams/day and 240.92 grams/day respectively; p=0.006 Mann-Whitney U test).
Other common dietary nutrients were also compared between the two groups. The
dietary carbohydrate (p<0.001), total sugar (p<0.001), vitamin C (p=0.001) and folic
acid (p<0.001) intakes were significantly related to cognitive impairment (using
chi-square statistics).
After adjustment for age, gender, education, exercise pattern, the dietary flavonoids
intake was not independently associated with cognitive impairment. However, after
adjustment for age, education level, exercise pattern and BMI, the higher to highest
quartile of dietary carbohydrate intake (184.184-1176.703g/d), high total sugar intake
(0.166-35.102g/d), highest quartile of vitamin C intake (139.803-900.952mg/d), the
third and fourth quartiles of folic acid intake (208.899-1544.418mcg/d) were
significantly associated with reduced risks of cognitive impairment. Older adults who
had regular exercise (both less and more than 30 minutes per day) had lower risk of
cognitive impairment than those who never did exercise (OR= 0.361, 95% confidence
interval=0.167-0.784 for less than 30 minutes/d; OR=0.137, 95% confidence
interval=0.048-0.396 for more than 30 minutes/d). We also found high BMI was
associated with a reduced risk of cognitive impairment with an OR of 0.897 (95%
confidence interval=0.816-0.987). Besides, the increasing age was also associated
with cognitive impairment (OR=1.059, 95% confidence interval=1.007-1.115).
Conclusion:
In summary, the present study demonstrated that the dietary flavonoids intake
was not significantly associated with the risk of cognitive impairment in Chinese
older adults in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Medicine / Master / Master of Medical Sciences
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:HKU/oai:hub.hku.hk:10722/174446 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Li, Wenjia., 李汶嘉. |
| Publisher | The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) |
| Source Sets | Hong Kong University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | PG_Thesis |
| Source | http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B47657443 |
| Rights | The author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights) and the right to use in future works., Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License |
| Relation | HKU Theses Online (HKUTO) |
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