Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet and Incidence of Pre-Frailty and Frailty in Community-Dwelling Adults 70+: The 3-Year DO-HEALTH Study

The Mediterranean diet has been associated with many health benefits. Therefore, we investigated whether the degree of adherence to the Mediterranean diet at baseline, or changes in adherence over time, were associated with the incidence of pre-frailty or frailty in generally healthy older adults. This study used the DO-HEALTH trial data. We evaluated Mediterranean diet adherence with Panagiotakos' MedDietScore at baseline and at 3-year follow-up; frailty was assessed annually with the Fried frailty phenotype. We used minimally and fully adjusted mixed logistic regression models to estimate the exposure-disease relationship. We included 1811 participants without frailty at baseline (mean age 74.7 years; 59.4% women). Baseline adherence, as reflected by the MedDietScore, was not associated with becoming pre-frail [OR(95%CI) = 0.93 (0.83-1.03) for five-point greater adherence] or frail [OR(95%CI) = 0.90 (0.73-1.12) for five points]. However, a five-point increase in the MedDietScore over three years was associated with lower odds of becoming pre-frail [OR(95%CI) = 0.77 (0.68-0.88)] and frail [OR(95%CI) = 0.77 (0.64-0.92)]. In generally healthy and active older adults, baseline adherence to the Mediterranean diet was not associated with the incidence of pre-frailty or frailty over a 3-year follow-up. However, improved adherence to the Mediterranean diet over time was associated with significantly lower odds of becoming pre-frail or frail.