Protein Nutritional Status and Frailty: A Mendelian Randomization Study.
J Nutr 2021;
152:269-275. [PMID:
34601600 PMCID:
PMC8754580 DOI:
10.1093/jn/nxab348]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2021] [Revised: 07/22/2021] [Accepted: 09/23/2021] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Observational studies have suggested that better protein nutritional status may contribute to prevention of frailty.
OBJECTIVE
We sought to examine this hypothesis using a Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.
METHODS
We conducted a two-sample MR study using GWAS summary statistics data of the UK Biobank. We applied genetically predicted serum albumin as a primary exposure measure and serum total protein as a secondary exposure measure. The outcome measure was the Rockwood frailty index (FI) based on 49 deficits from 356,432 individuals (53.3% of them were women, with a mean ± SD age of 56.7 ± 8.0 y. The association between serum protein measures and FI was mainly analyzed by use of the inverse variance weighted method.
RESULTS
A genetically predicted serum albumin concentration was not statistically significantly associated with FI in the full sample. However, in women, we observed a preventive association between genetically predicted serum albumin and FI (β = -0.172 per g/L; 95% CI: -0.336, -0.007; P = 0.041). In the full sample, genetically predicted serum total protein was inversely associated with FI (β: -0.153 per g/L; 95% CI: -0.251, -0.056; P = 0.002). In both women and men, higher serum total protein was significantly inversely associated with FI; regression coefficients were -0.148 per g/L (95% CI: -0.287, -0.009; P = 0.037) for women, -0.154 per g/L (95% CI: -0.290, -0.018; P = 0.027) for men.
CONCLUSIONS
The present MR study implies that better protein nutritional status modestly contributes to reducing the risk of frailty.
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