Handgrip Strength Cannot Be Assumed a Proxy for Overall Muscle Strength
OBJECTIVES: Dynapenia, low muscle strength, is predictive for negative health outcomes and is usually expressed as handgrip strength (HGS). Whether HGS can be a proxy for overall muscle strength and whether this depends on age and health status is controversial. This study assessed the agreement between HGS and knee extension strength (KES) in populations differing in age and health status.DESIGN: Data were retrieved from 5 cohorts.SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Community, geriatric outpatient clinics, and a hospital. Five cohorts (960 individuals, 49.8% male) encompassing healthy young and older individuals, geriatric outpatients, and older individuals post hip fracture were included.MEASURES: …
Report from the second cytomegalovirus and immunosenescence workshop
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.; International audience; The Second International Workshop on CMV & Immunosenescence was held in Cambridge, UK, 2-4th December, 2010. The presentations covered four separate sessions: cytomegalovirus and T cell phenotypes; T cell memory frequency, inflation and immunosenescence; cytomegalovirus in aging, mortality and disease states; and the immunobiology of cytomegalovirus-specific T cells and effects of the virus on vacc…
Assessment of maximal handgrip strength: how many attempts are needed?
© 2017 The Authors. Background: Handgrip strength (HGS) is used to identify individuals with low muscle strength (dynapenia). The influence of the number of attempts on maximal HGS is not yet known and may differ depending on age and health status. This study aimed to assess how many attempts of HGS are required to obtain maximal HGS. Methods: Three cohorts (939 individuals) differing in age and health status were included. HGS was assessed three times and explored as continuous and dichotomous variable. Paired t-test, intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and Bland-Altman analysis were used to test reproducibility of HGS. The number of individuals with misclassified dynapenia at attemp…
Association of interleukin-6 rs1800796 polymorphism with reduced cognitive performance in healthy older adults
© 2018 Elsevier B.V. With increasing life expectancy, age-associated cognitive impairment is an escalating problem worldwide. Inflammation is one of the features that characterises cognitive decline and can stimulate neurodegeneration. Interleukin 6 (IL-6) is a cytokine frequently associated with a pro-inflammatory phenotype and increased levels have been associated with the pathogenesis of dementia. The rs1800796 polymorphism in the promoter region of IL-6 gene was previously shown to influence IL-6 expression and therefore we hypothesised this gene polymorphism would be associated with IL-6 plasma levels and cognitive performance of older adults. The present study investigated the associa…
Knowledge of Nutrition and Physical Activity Guidelines is Not Associated with Physical Function in Dutch Older Adults Attending a Healthy Ageing Public Engagement Event
Keenan A Ramsey,1 Suey SY Yeung,1 Anna GM Rojer,1 Noémie Gensous,2 Evans A Asamane,3 Justin Avery Aunger,3 Dmitriy Bondarev,4 Andrea Cabbia,5 Paul Doody,3 Barbara Iadarola,6,7 Belina Rodrigues,8,9 Muhammad R Tahir,10 Victor Kallen,10 Paola Pazienza,6,7 Nadine Correia Santos,8,9 Sarianna Sipilä,4 Janice L Thompson,3 Carel GM Meskers,1,11 Marijke C Trappenburg,12,13 Anna C Whittaker,15 Andrea B Maier1,14,16,17 1Department of Human Movement Sciences, @AgeAmsterdam, Amsterdam Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, Faculty of Behavioural and Human Movement Sciences, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; 2Department of Experimental, Diagnostic, and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), University of Bologna, Bolog…
Dysregulation of C-X-C motif ligand 10 during aging and association with cognitive performance
International audience; Chronic low-grade inflammation during aging (inflammaging) is associated with cognitive decline and neurodegeneration; however, the mechanisms underlying inflammaging are unclear. We studied a population (n = 361) of healthy young and old adults from the MyoAge cohort. Peripheral levels of C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 10 (CXCL10) was found to be higher in older adults, compared with young, and negatively associated with working memory performance. This coincided with an age-related reduction in blood DNA methylation at specific CpGs within the CXCL10 gene promoter. In vitro analysis supported the role of DNA methylation in regulating CXCL10 transcription. A polymorph…
Immunosenescence and Cytomegalovirus
Since Looney at al. published their seminal paper a decade ago [1] it has become clear that many of the differences in T cell immunological parameters observed between young and old people are related to the age-associated increasing prevalence of infection with the persistent β-herpesvirus HHV-5 (Cytomegalovirus). Ten years later, studies suggest that hallmark age-associated changes in peripheral blood T cell subset distribution may not occur at all in people who are not infected with this virus [[2]; Derhovanessian et al., in press]. Whether the observed changes are actually caused by CMV is an open question, but very similar, rapid changes observed in uninfected patients receiving CMV-in…
The Physical Activity and Nutritional INfluences in Ageing (PANINI) Toolkit: a standardized approach towards physical activity and nutritional assessment of older adults
Assessing multiple domains of health in older adults requires multidimensional and large datasets. Consensus on definitions, measurement protocols and outcome measures is a prerequisite. The Physical Activity and Nutritional INfluences In Ageing (PANINI) Toolkit aims to provide a standardized toolkit of best-practice measures for assessing health domains of older adults with an emphasis on nutrition and physical activity. The toolkit was drafted by consensus of multidisciplinary and pan-European experts on ageing to standardize research initiatives in diverse populations within the PANINI consortium. Domains within the PANINI Toolkit include socio-demographics, general health, nutrition, ph…
Serum albumin and muscle measures in a cohort of healthy young and old participants
Consensus on clinically valid diagnostic criteria for sarcopenia requires a systematical assessment of the association of its candidate measures of muscle mass, muscle strength, and physical performance on one side and muscle-related clinical parameters on the other side. In this study, we systematically assessed associations between serum albumin as a muscle-related parameter and muscle measures in 172 healthy young (aged 18–30 years) and 271 old participants (aged 69–81 year) from the European MYOAGE study. Muscle measures included relative muscle mass, i.e., total- and appendicular lean mass (ALM) percentage, absolute muscle mass, i.e., ALM/height2 and total lean mass in kilograms, handg…
Plantarflexor Muscle-Tendon Properties are Associated With Mobility in Healthy Older Adults
BACKGROUND: Muscle mass, strength, and power are known determinants of mobility in older adults but there is limited knowledge on the influence of muscle architecture or tendon properties on mobility. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between mobility and plantarflexor muscle-tendon properties in healthy older adults.METHODS: A total of 52 subjects (age 70-81 years) were measured for 6-minute walk test (6MWT), timed "up and go"-test (TUG), isometric plantarflexion strength, Achilles tendon stiffness, triceps surae muscle architecture, lower extremity lean mass, isometric leg extension strength, and leg extension power. Partial correlations and multivariate regression…
Physical Activity and Nutrition INfluences In ageing (PANINI): consortium mission statement
First paragraph: Current demographic trends indicate that by the year 2020, almost one in five of the European population will be aged 65 years or over. Although life expectancy is increasing by 2 years per decade, the period of life spent in good health is not keeping pace and most Europeans spend their last decade in poor health. Consequently, there is an urgent need to understand how lifestyle factors can influence age-related changes from gene to society level and how they may be integrated into a net effect of healthy ageing. It is also crucial to develop and validate interventions and health policies to ensure that more of our older adults have a healthy and active later life. This is…
The prevalence of malnutrition according to the new ESPEN definition in four diverse populations
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd and European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism.Background & aims: Consensus on the definition of malnutrition has not yet been reached. Recently, The European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN) proposed a consensus definition of malnutrition. The aim of the present study was to describe the prevalence of malnutrition according to the ESPEN definition in four diverse populations. Methods: In total, 349 acutely ill middle-aged patients, 135 geriatric outpatients, 306 healthy old individuals and 179 healthy young individuals were included in the study. Subjects were screened for risk of malnutrition using the SNAQ. The ESPEN definition of maln…