Milk, fruits and vegetables may help reduce disability risk

[Guest guest]

Medical News Today 07 Feb 2005

Milk, fruits and vegetables may help reduce disability risk

There may be more reason than ever to drink your milk and eat your fruits and

vegetables. A Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center researcher and

colleagues reported today that high consumption of dairy products and fruits and

vegetables may lower the risk of disability, especially among black women.

The research, in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that black

women who consumed the highest amounts of dairy products and fruits and

vegetables - close to the amounts recommended by the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for

Americans - had at least a 30 percent lower risk of disability than participants

who consumed the lowest amounts of these foods.

And, among all participants, eating more of these foods was associated with

lower risk for functional limitations, such as being unable to walk a quarter of

a mile or climb 10 steps, that often precede disability.

" In general, there was an association between dairy, fruit and vegetable intake

and functional limitations and disability, " said Houston, Ph.D., a

research associate at Wake Forest Baptist. " Getting the recommended number of

servings of dairy, fruits and vegetables should be investigated for its

potential to reduce the prevalence of disability in the aging population. "

Houston, who completed the study while she was a graduate student at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the findings are important

because the number of disabled elderly is expected to triple between 1985 and

2050. About half of people over age 65 will become disabled enough to require

some nursing home care.

" We know that obesity, lack of physical exercise, alcohol consumption and

smoking are modifiable risk factors for disability, but little is known about

the role of diet, " said Houston, a registered dietitian.

The researchers believe this is the first study to report on an association

between disability and eating certain foods. For the project, they evaluated

data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, which included

about 16,000 randomly selected participants in Forsyth County, , Miss.,

Hagerstown, Md., and suburban Minneapolis, Minn. People who had chronic disease

and were likely to already be disabled were excluded.

Participants, who were between 45 and 64 years old when the study began, were

asked to report on their diets over the past year using a 66-item food frequency

questionnaire.

Then, an average of nine years later, the researchers surveyed participants on

their ability to perform 12 daily activities, such dressing and feeding

themselves and walking across a room, known as activities of daily living; being

able to cook and manage their money, known as instrumental activities of daily

living; and being able to walk a quarter of mile and walk up 10 steps without

resting, to measure functional limitations.

The study adjusted for other factors that could have affected the results - such

as age, education, smoking, and body mass index - and found that higher amounts

of dairy, fruits and vegetables were associated with lower risk of functional

limitations. And, among black women, risk of disability was significantly lower.

The median servings for study participants consuming the highest amounts of the

foods were two servings of dairy, three servings of fruits and three servings of

vegetables. In contrast, median servings for participants consuming the lowest

amounts of the foods were less than half a serving of dairy and one or less

serving of fruits and vegetables. Current dietary recommendations call for three

cups a day of low-fat or fat-free dairy products, two cups (four servings) of

fruit and two and a half cups (five servings) of vegetables.

Houston said there are several ways that the foods could affect disability risk.

The calcium and vitamin D in dairy foods may decrease the risk of disability

associated with osteoporosis and decreased muscle strength. The antioxidants

found in fruits and vegetables may reduce the accumulation of oxidative damage

in tissues, which could slow disability associated with aging and decrease the

risk of chronic diseases that can lead to disability.

Houston's co-researchers were June s, Ph.D., Jianwen Cai, Ph.D., and

Pamela Haines, Ph.D., all with the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill.