Age as an Effect Modifier of Nutrition and Health

Research Topic Highlights

This collection of articles explores multiple facets of nutrition, aging, and health in older adults. Article 1 analyzes the high and varied prevalence of malnutrition among elderly populations in Africa, highlighting the urgent need for standardized screening and targeted nutritional interventions. Article 2 presents findings from a randomized clinical trial showing that a combination of vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, and a simple home exercise program may synergistically reduce cancer risk among healthy adults aged 70 and above. Article 3 investigates the potential link between systemic inflammation (as measured by C-reactive protein) and reduced appetite in healthy older individuals, suggesting that increased inflammation may slightly impair appetite and thus contribute to malnutrition risk. Article 4 assesses the safety and efficacy of glycine and N-acetylcysteine supplementation for boosting glutathione levels and mitigating oxidative stress, with results indicating benefits for a subset of older adults with high oxidative stress and low baseline glutathione. Collectively, the articles underscore the complexity of maintaining optimal health and nutrition in aging populations and call attention to the interactions between diet, supplementation, exercise, physiological biomarkers, and disease prevention.

Context and Scope

Population studies across the world provide us an overview of what healthy diets look like. They are generally minimally processed, rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low in refined carbohydrates and saturated fats. However, to what extent can diet help us maintain health as we get older? While the population of the world is aging, with older adults being the fastest growing demographic, most of our understanding of nutrition and health is based on snapshots of data collection. This may or may not be reflective of a dietary habit over a lifetime. Further research would help us characterize lifelong dietary habits, and how dietary habit changes in each decade of life. This may contribute to improving health at the current age and later in life.

Younger adults are generally at lower risk of age-related diseases, while emerging evidence indicates that younger generations tend to have lower diet quality than older generations due to urbanization and higher access to ultra-processed food. This implies that the impact of nutrition on health may be different between early and late adulthood. However, not much evidence is actually available to support this notion. It is also not well known whether dietary intake changes as we go through different decades of adulthood, and whether the timing of diet improvement could differentially have an impact on health at the end of life. Ultimately, the questions this Research Topic aims to address are: 1) What are healthy diets for each decade of life?; and 2) Is it ever too late to make a change?

In order to achieve the goals listed above, we encourage authors to submit reports that directly compare the impact of diets/foods/nutrients on health measures in subjects of various ages. Such reports could either: 1) directly follow subjects and capture their nutrition and health data as they age; or 2) include subjects with a wide range of age and consider age as an effect modifier when examining the relationship between nutrition and health/diseases. For observational studies, subjects should be followed longitudinally or stratified by age in cross-sectional studies. For trials and animal studies, two groups of subjects of different ages may be enrolled and receive identical nutritional interventions to examine the effect of such interventions at different ages.

All article types are welcome, including Original Research, Methods, (Mini) Reviews, Perspectives, and Opinion articles. We also accept both studies in human subjects (observational and intervention studies) and animal models of aging. Some examples of research questions including, but not limited to, the followings:

•How do dietary habits, nutrient intake, and nutrition status change as we age?

•How do major life changing events (e.g. relocation, socioeconomic status shift, war, pandemic, health issues) have an impact on diet quality and nutrition status in younger and older adults?

•What are considered healthy ranges of physiological, biochemical, and functional nutrition and health measures in older adults of various ages (for example, 60+, 80+, and 100+ years old)?

•How does the body process, absorb, and metabolize food and nutrients differently as we age?

•Does improving diet quality in early and later adulthood differ, in terms of its impact on health measures? Likewise, does intake of ultra-processed foods have a worse impact on older adults than younger adults?

•Does improving diet quality earlier in life mitigate age-related disease risks later in life? At what age is it too late to observe such an impact of diet?

•Do older adults benefit more from certain nutrients, foods, or dietary supplements than younger adults?

Dr. Jirayu Tanprasertsuk works full-time in industry and is employed by NomNomNow Inc

Keywords: young adult, younger adult, old adult, older adult, nutrition, diet, aging, health, nutrition epidemiology, population study, Malnutrition, Nutritional supplementation, Exercise intervention, C-reactive protein (CRP), Vitamin D, Omega-3 fatty acids, Appetite regulation, Glutathione, Oxidative stress, Geriatric health

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.