The Effect of Culinary Medicine to Enhance Protein Intake on Muscle Quality in Older Adults

Summary

Aging is associated with a decline in muscle mass, strength, and physical function, leading to sarcopenia and frailty. This deterioration of muscle and physical capabilities impacts an individual's functional independence and quality of life. Dietary protein stimulates muscle protein synthesis. Therefore, nutritional interventions that recommend higher protein intakes may enhance muscle protein synthesis. Food intake, including protein-rich foods such as red meat, has been shown to decline with age. Barriers to consuming protein-rich foods include reductions in taste and smell, dentition and dexterity, and changes in living situations. Therefore, nutritional interventions that can effectively improve eating behaviors and diet quality while stimulating muscle protein synthesis in older adults are necessary to help prevent, manage, and promote recovery of sarcopenia. To reduce potential barriers of red meat consumption in community-dwelling older adults, an additional beneficial strategy may be the use of cooking demonstrations, or culinary medicine, by imparting knowledge about healthy cooking to improve the dietary habits of individuals who are at risk of sarcopenia. In this approach, people will be educated about age-appropriate, healthy eating behaviors and equipped with basic cooking skills to incorporate nutritious food into their daily diet. A systematic review concluded that culinary interventions such as cooking classes effectively improved attitudes, self-efficacy, and healthy eating in children and adults. A recent study using cooking videos to encourage the consumption of calcium-rich foods showed that the subjects gained knowledge and were motivated to consume calcium-rich foods, and video demonstrations were accepted as an effective communication channel to impart cooking skills. Additionally, it is suggested that cooking at home improves adherence to healthy nutrition, thereby reducing chronic illness risks. Older adults may not be aware of their changing nutrient needs and therefore may lack the skills to prepare nutritionally adequate foods properly. Thus, cooking demonstrations can be a novel strategy to improve diet quality in older adults and promote and augment at-home cooking. Culinary medicine is an evidence-based field that combines skills of preparing, cooking, and presenting food with the science of medicine to accomplish potential improvements in eating behaviors and health outcomes. The goal of culinary medicine is to help people improve their diet quality which assists them in their medical regimen to produce an effective treatment.

Conditions

• Sarcopenia

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Culinary Medicine

The CM group will receive virtually-delivered cooking demonstration videos every week and nutrition education videos every other week. The cooking demonstrations will provide them with visual instructions on how to incorporate lean beef into their diet. The nutrition education videos will be developed using the Nutrition Care Manual from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and will cover the importance of maintaining adequate protein intake and ways to enhance it in the diet.

BEHAVIORAL

Control

The CN group will receive virtually-delivered recipes every week centered on lean beef intake.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Cattlemen's Beef Association

  collaborator INDUSTRY

• Texas Tech University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Shannon Galyean · Texas Tech Nutritional Sciences

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-05-06

Primary Completion

2024-04-25

Completion

2024-07-22

Countries

• United States

Study Locations