Department of Internal Medicine II, Centre for Complementary Medicine, Freiburg University Hospital Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
Unit of Oncology and Radiotherapy, Pereira Rossell Women's Hospital, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Aging Clin Exp Res. 2023 Oct;35(10):2191-2200. doi: 10.1007/s40520-023-02508-6. Epub 2023 Jul 29.
Dietary acid load (DAL) has been associated with frailty and hip fractures in older adults, who often have a reduced kidney function and thus compromised buffering capacities. Studies to quantify DAL in older adults are scarce and controversies persist as to whether DAL in- or decreases with age.
To enhance the understanding of DAL in older individuals, we examined its relationship with increasing age and selected anthropometric data in a well-characterized sample of US adults.
Secondary data analysis of nationally representative data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys data (NHANES 2011-2016). The sample included n = 3018 adults aged 60+, which may be extrapolated to represent n = 45,113,471 Americans. DAL was estimated using 4 formulas, including Potential Renal Acid Load (PRAL) and Net Endogenous Acid Production (NEAP).
All employed DAL scores tended to decline with increasing age. Participants aged 80 years or older yielded the lowest DAL scores. The average US citizen aged 60+ consumed an acidifying diet, yet there were sex-specific differences in the adjusted means for some scores. NEAP was positively correlated with both body mass index (r = 0.26, p < 0.001) and the sagittal abdominal diameter (r = 0.31, p < 0.001) in this nationally representative sample.
The previously reported phenomenon of increasing DAL values in older people in non-Western countries may not apply to the US. Our findings may constitute an important step towards a better understanding of DAL in older US adults, and highlight the need for additional population-specific research in the field.
饮食酸负荷 (DAL) 与老年人的虚弱和髋部骨折有关，而老年人的肾功能往往降低，缓冲能力受损。目前针对老年人的 DAL 进行定量分析的研究很少，而且关于 DAL 是否随着年龄的增长而增加或减少仍然存在争议。
为了更深入地了解老年人的 DAL，我们研究了 DAL 与年龄增长的关系，并在具有代表性的美国成年人样本中选择了一些人体测量数据进行分析。
对来自国家健康和营养检查调查 (NHANES 2011-2016) 的具有全国代表性的数据进行二次数据分析。该样本包括 3018 名 60 岁以上的成年人，可推断代表 45113471 名美国人。使用 4 种公式（包括潜在肾酸负荷 (PRAL) 和净内源性酸生成 (NEAP)）来估计 DAL。
所有使用的 DAL 评分都随着年龄的增长而下降。80 岁或以上的参与者的 DAL 评分最低。平均而言，年龄在 60 岁以上的美国公民摄入了酸化饮食，但某些评分的调整平均值存在性别差异。在这个具有全国代表性的样本中，NEAP 与体重指数（r=0.26，p<0.001）和矢状腹部直径（r=0.31，p<0.001）呈正相关。
在非西方国家，老年人的 DAL 值增加的先前报道现象可能不适用于美国。我们的发现可能是更好地了解美国老年成年人 DAL 的重要一步，并强调了在该领域进行更多针对特定人群的研究的必要性。
