The Associations of Individual and Subclasses of Nonesterified Fatty Acids With Disability, and Mobility Limitation in Older Adults: The Cardiovascular Health Study

Peter D Ahiawodzi; Petra Buzkova; Alice H Lichtenstein; Nirupa R Matthan; Joachim H Ix; Jorge R Kizer; Russell P Tracy; Alice Arnold; Anne B Newman; David Siscovick; Luc Djousse; Kenneth J Mukamal

doi:10.1093/gerona/glac206

The Associations of Individual and Subclasses of Nonesterified Fatty Acids With Disability, and Mobility Limitation in Older Adults: The Cardiovascular Health Study

J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2023 Jul 8;78(7):1155-1163. doi: 10.1093/gerona/glac206.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Public Health, Campbell University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Buies Creek, North Carolina, USA.
² Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
³ Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory, Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
⁴ Divisions of Nephrology-Hypertension, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.
⁵ Cardiology Section, San Francisco VA Health Care System, and Department of Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California,USA.
⁶ Department of Pathology and Biochemistry, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, Vermont, USA.
⁷ Department of a Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
⁸ Departments of Epidemiology and Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
⁹ Division of Research, Evaluation and Policy, The New York Academy of Medicine, New York, New York, USA.
¹⁰ Division of Aging, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
¹¹ Division of General Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Abstract

Background: We sought to determine the associations between individual nonesterified fatty acids (NEFAs) and disability and mobility limitation.

Methods: We studied 1 734 participants in the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), an ongoing population-based cohort study of community-living older American adults. We measured 35 individual NEFA species in fasting serum samples obtained at the 1996-1997 clinic visit. Using yearly assessments of activities of daily living and self-reported mobility, we identified participants with incident disability or mobility limitation during 15 years of follow-up. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to determine the associations between per SD increment in the individual NEFAs and incident disability and mobility limitations with adjustment for potential confounding factors.

Results: Higher concentrations of total and a broad range of individual NEFA species were associated with risk of disability and mobility limitation (disability: HR per SD of total NEFA [SD = 174.70] = 1.11, 95% CI = 1.04-1.18, p = .001; mobility limitation: HR per SD of total NEFA = 1.09, 95% CI = 1.02-1.16, p = .01). Among individual saturated NEFAs (SFAs), myristic (14:0) and palmitic (16:0) acids were significantly associated with higher risk of both disability and mobility limitations, but longer-chain FAs were not. Most individual monounsaturated (MUFA), n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), and trans FAs were positively significantly associated with higher risks of both disability and mobility limitation. In contrast, most n-3 PUFA species were not associated with disability or mobility limitation.

Conclusions: Higher risks of disability and mobility limitation were observed for proinflammatory intermediate-chain SFAs, MUFAs, n-6 PUFAs, and trans FAs. Our findings indicated no significant association for anti-inflammatory n-3 PUFAs.

Keywords: Disability; Mobility limitation; Nonesterified fatty acids.

MeSH terms

Activities of Daily Living
Aged
Cohort Studies
Fatty Acids
Fatty Acids, Monounsaturated
Fatty Acids, Nonesterified*
Fatty Acids, Unsaturated
Humans
Mobility Limitation*
Prospective Studies
Risk Factors

Substances

Fatty Acids, Nonesterified
Fatty Acids, Unsaturated
Fatty Acids, Monounsaturated
Fatty Acids

Abstract

MeSH terms

Substances

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