1. Introduction
pneumonia, urinary-tract infection, cancer, fractures, Frailty, trauma
CANCER, PNEUMONIA, CHRONIC DISEASES, INFLAMMATION
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of increased dietary protein in daily-life settings in Japan for 6 months on the activities of daily living (ADL) in adults aged 75 or older at nutritional risk. The study was an open-label, exploratory, randomized controlled trial conducted at seven hospitals in Japan. The study participants were adults aged 75 or older who were hospitalized for treatable cancer, pneumonia, fractures, and/or urinary-tract infection at nutritional risk. The primary outcome was change in grip strength, skeletal muscle, and ADL indices (Barthel index, Lawton score). One hundred sixty-nine patients were randomly assigned to the intensive care (IC) or standard care (SC) group; the protein intake goals (g/kgw/day) were 1.5 for IC and 1.0 for SC. There was a significant improvement in grip strength only in the IC group (1.1 kg: 95% CI 0.1 to 2.1) (Increased life expectancy is an important feature of developed societies, highlighting the need for a healthy life span that enables independent living for older adults without the need of specialized medical care. Frailty, which is an intermediate stage between independence and requirement of nursing care, is a condition that can be reversed to facilitate recovery from acute illness, trauma, and inflammation. In older adults having various chronic diseases, nutritional improvement might well represent an opportunity to moderate frailty and empower better activities of daily living (ADL).Indeed, it has been reported that older adults may have insufficient protein intake for health maintenance [This randomized, comparative clinical trial was conducted to clarify the safety and efficacy of increased dietary protein intake in daily-life settings for 6 months in adults aged 75 or older.