Vitamin D, fish oil don’t help older people stay healthy, study finds

Cara Murez HealthDay Reporter

Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022 (HealthDay News) — I wish I could pop Vitamin D When fish oil Supplements to combat aging-related vulnerabilities, but new research conveys a disappointing message: Don’t expect it.

In reaching that conclusion, the team used the following data: vital research (Vitamin D and Omega-3 Trials) included information from over 25,000 US adults. The researchers found that supplementation made little difference using questionnaires and frailty assessments taken before the trial, six months after he started, and each year before five years of follow-up. .

Investigators studied the supplement in many different subgroups, including those with low vitamin D levels, men and women with and without a healthy diet, noted study author Ariella Orkaby, Ph.D. is a geriatrician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“Our results remained consistent. We saw no benefit to either the intervention or the supplement,” Orkaby said.

Fragility Defined as reduced physiological reserve. Someone may walk slower, lose weight, and have weaker grip strength. Frailty affects about half of adults over the age of 85, but can occur at younger ages.

In this study, researchers used two main definitions of frailty. One of them sums up all the different things that can go wrong in your body to figure out how many things a person has and how frail they are on that spectrum. , Orkaby explained. The other directly measures a person’s gait, fitness, energy level, weight, and weight loss.

“We tried to be as rigorous as possible, and actually used multiple definitions to ensure we captured as many types of frailty as possible within the older population,” Orkaby explained. did.

Aside from a few studies on inflammatory arthritis and specific populations, no studies on these supplements have shown significant benefits for a variety of health conditions, from heart disease to cancer to bone fractures.

Preventing frailty is as magical as eating a balanced diet and whole foods, sun exposure and small amounts of natural vitamin D, staying active, exercising daily, and being involved in your community. It doesn’t seem like it.

“In fact, the Mediterranean diet has been shown to prevent frailty, which is very encouraging data,” Orkaby said.

“Again, these are hard things to do. These are lifestyle changes, not the same as paying to buy pills.

Dr. Elizabeth Ekstrom, Professor of Medicine The Department of General Medicine and Geriatrics at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland wrote: editorial It accompanied research.

“They really did a great job thinking through all of the potential benefits and all the ways to ensure fidelity to the intervention, all the ways to make sure they were removing bias from the trial. “One of the good things this study has given us is that we have a high degree of confidence in our ability to show how accurate these results are.”

Ekstrom’s editorial focuses on the benefits of eating. mediterranean diet Instead of supplements for frailty prevention.

“The Mediterranean diet has actually been shown over the years to have health benefits, reducing heart attacks and strokes, cancer, dementia and all sorts of medical conditions,” Ekström said.

In the United States, where many people don’t have gardens and olive trees aren’t abundant, it’s not a go-to diet, but beans, legumes, vegetables and local plants. It also contains fish, nuts and olive oil.

“Not being frail should be one of people’s main goals because it leads to reduced athletic performance, hospitalizations, deaths, falls and all these horrible things,” Ekström said. I was.

“It’s not just about food. It’s about exercise. It’s about keeping us socially engaged and keeping us physically engaged, but diet is a big part of this.

“This is not something you should start doing at 80. That being said, if you haven’t done it before 80, start now,” Eckstrom said. “It’s never too late to start, and there are some great studies showing that even people who changed their diet in their 80s and his 90s were able to reduce their risk. dementia And some of these other results.

The Medical College of South Carolina has more information. frail.

Source: Ariela Orkaby, MD, MPH, Geriatrician, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston. Elizabeth Ekstrom, MD, MPH, Professor, Medicine, Co-director of the OHSU Aging Alliance in Portland, Department of General Medicine and Geriatrics, Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicine. JAMA network openSeptember 13, 2022, Online