Dietary Supplement Intake and Its Association with Cognitive Function, Physical Fitness, Depressive Symptoms, Nutritional Status and Biochemical Indices in a 3-Year Follow-Up Among Community Dwelling Older Adults: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Purpose

Use of dietary supplements by older adults has been increasing for improving micronutrient deficiencies, cognitive function, and overall health status. Thus, the objective of this secondary investigation is to explore the longitudinal association of baseline supplement intake in improving cognitive function, biochemical parameters, anthropometric variables and physical fitness among older adults.

Methods

Towards Useful Aging (TUA) is a three-year longitudinal study conducted at baseline (2013–2014) and at follow-up (2015–2017) surveys. The number of participants dropped from 2322 during baseline study to 1787 and 1560 during the 18th and 36th month follow-up, respectively. Data on socio-demography, use of dietary supplement, biochemical indices, anthropometry, cognitive function, physical fitness and depressive symptoms were obtained. Longitudinal associations were done using the linear mixed model analysis among 1285 subjects with complete data.

Results

The most common vitamin and mineral supplementations consumed were multivitamin, B-complex, and calcium. Meanwhile, the herbal supplements consumed by participants were Eurycoma longifolia, Morinda citrifolia and Orthosiphon aristatus. Longitudinal analysis adjusted for multiple covariates showed improvement in both supplement users and non-users for global cognitive function, working memory, visual memory, 2-minute step test, chair stand test, chair sit and reach and time up and go test, waist circumference and hip circumference in both the supplement users and non-users.

Conclusion

Our findings indicated that dietary supplement intake is not associated with cognitive function, physical fitness, nutritional status, depressive symptoms or biochemical indices since improvement in the parameters was observed among both supplement users and non-users.

Keywords:

• dietary supplement
• cognitive function
• physical fitness
• depressive symptoms
• nutritional status
• biochemical

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank all the fieldworkers, participants, co-researchers and local authorities for their cooperation in making this study a success.

Data Sharing Statement

The data is available upon request from the corresponding author, who can be contacted using the details given in the title page.

Author Contributions

All authors made substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; took part in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; agreed to submit to the current journal; gave final approval of the version to be published; and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure

All authors declare no conflicts of interest.