A new study published in BMJ Open journal indicates that a lot of weight from midlife onwards is likely to increase physical frailty risk in older age. According to the researchers, frailty is frequently misunderstood to be a solely wasting illness. Therefore, they stress maintaining a healthy weight through maturity to help reduce the risk.
Frailty associated with low quality of life
Pre-frailty is defined by 1–2 factors, including unintentional weight loss, weariness, weak handgrip, slow walking pace, and insufficient physical activity. On the other hand, at least 3 of these five factors define frailty. Frailty is linked to a higher risk of falling, disabilities, hospitalization, lower quality of life, and even death.
Growing research indicates that elderly obese people could be at higher risk since obesity exacerbates the aging-related loss in physical function, aerobic fitness, and muscular strength. However, just a few studies have examined long-term changes in weight with frailty risk.
The researchers drew subjects in the population-based Tromso Study to study whether abdominal obesity (waist circumference) and BMI can jointly or separately affect pre-frailty or frailty risk. The Tromso survey was carried out between 1974 and 2016, ad the latest study considers data from 1994.4 to 2015/16.
A BMI of below 18.5 was considered underweight, with the normal range being 18-5-25.9, and individuals with a BMI of above 30 were considered obese.
Pre-frailty/frailty groups gained weight
Whereas subjects in the pre-frail/frail and strong groups gained weight and widened their waist sizes during the observation period, the strong group had a higher percentage of people with acceptable BMIs and waists at the beginning of the period.
Except for co-occurring conditions like diabetes, all potentially major factors were taken into consideration during the evaluation, including alcohol and tobacco use, educational qualification, relationship status, support networks, and physical activity habits. These differences between pre-frail/frail and strong groups were significant.
Although this observational investigation did not track potentially significant shifts in habits, food, or social networks that could have occurred over the observation period, the results are consistent with those of earlier long-term investigations.
