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Include These Foods In Your Diet To Boost Physical Performance, Survival In Elderly

Sarcopenia leads to a significant decline in the physical performance decline of the elderly. A new study suggests that adding these foods to your diet can help manage it.

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Written By: Arushi Bidhuri | Updated : September 24, 2021 3:39 PM IST

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As you grow older, your body starts to go through certain changes. For example, your muscles grow larger and stronger from the time you are born till the time you turn 30. But you start to lose muscle mass and function at some point in your 30s. One of the major causes of this is an age-related condition called sarcopenia. The condition affects 5-13 per cent of older persons aged 60 to 70 years on average. For people aged 80 and up, the percentage rises to 11-50 per cent.

Sarcopenia Causes Decline In Physical Performance

Jordi Caldero from the Universitat de Lleida in Spain explained, "Sarcopenia is considered the main causative factor of the physical performance decline in the elderly. The compromised muscular function associated with sarcopenia has a negative impact on the life quality of older adults and increases the risk for adverse health outcomes including disability, fall-associated injuries, morbidity, and mortality."

Sarcopenia includes morphological and molecular alterations in several components of the neuromuscular system, such as spinal cord motoneurons and neuromuscular junctions, in addition to skeletal muscle atrophy.

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Symptoms And Causes Of Sarcopenia

Weakness and loss of stamina are common symptoms, which can make physical exercise difficult. Muscle mass shrinks, even more, when activity is reduced. Although sarcopenia is most commonly associated with those who are physically inactive, the fact that it can also affect persons who are physically active implies that there are other variables at play. Some other causes explained by researchers in various studies include:

  • Nerve cells that carry information from the brain to the muscles to initiate movement are reduced
  • Some hormones, such as growth hormone, testosterone, and insulin-like growth factor, have lower concentrations
  • Reduction in the body's ability to convert protein to energy
  • Not obtaining enough calories or protein to maintain muscle mass on a daily basis

Include Green Tea, Cocoa In Your Diet To Boost Survival

A study published in the journal Aging examined the effect of two flavonoid-rich diets containing either green tea extract (GTE) catechins or cocoa flavanols on age-related regressive alterations in the C57BL/6J mice's neuromuscular system.

As per the study result, dietary flavonoids from green tea or cocoa were found to considerably boost the survival rate of elderly mice and to prevent several regressive structural changes in different cellular components of the neuromuscular system that occur with ageing. As per the results, both diets helped preserve neuromuscular junctions' innervation and maturity, delayed the senescence process of the skeletal muscles, and enhances its regenerative capacity as inferred from the more youthful cellular phenotype of myofibers, the apparent reduction of myofiber degeneration/regeneration cycles.

(with inputs from agencies)

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Arushi Bidhuri

Arushi Bidhuri

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