A novel oral nutritional supplement improves gait speed and mitochondrial functioning compared to standard care in older adults with (or at risk of) undernutrition: results from a randomized controlled trial

Pol Grootswagers*, Ellen Smeets, Antwi-Boasiako Oteng, Lisette de Groot

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Undernutrition in older adults is mainly addressed by oral nutritional supplements, which do not affect physical functioning. In this study, we tested a novel oral nutritional supplement that included whey and casein protein, ursolic acid, free branch-chained amino acids and vitamin D against a standard supplement. We included older adults (>65y) with (or at risk of) undernutrition (n=82) and randomized them to 12 weeks of novel or standard supplement. Both groups showed significant increases in body mass. No within or between-group differences in lean body mass were observed. Fat mass increased significantly more in the standard than the novel supplement group (time*treatment effect P=0.045). The novel supplement group showed a larger improvement in walking performance on distances of 4m (treatment x time interaction P=0.048) and 400m (treatment x time interaction P=0.038) than the standard treatment group. Gene sets related to mitochondrial functioning and oxidative phosphorylation were upregulated in the novel supplement group and downregulated in the standard supplement group. We conclude that a 12-week intervention with the novel supplement improved walking performance both during short and long distance as compared to a standard supplement, which can largely be explained by increased mitochondrial functioning in the group receiving the novel supplement.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)9398-9418
JournalAging
Volume13
Issue number7
Early online date2 Apr 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Keywords

  • malnutrition
  • mitochondria
  • muscle
  • ursolic acid
  • walking performance

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