Dietary variety and nutrient intake among Japanese community-dwelling older adults: A cross-sectional study

Background: Maintaining good nutritional status through a varied diet is key to healthy aging. Methods: This cross-sectional study investigated the association between dietary variety based on the food frequency score (FFS, the score of the frequency of daily intake of 10 food groups, range 0–30) and nutrient intake based on a brief self-administered diet history questionnaire. Data from 130 older adults were analyzed. In addition, the association between FFS and estimated average requirement (EAR) deficiency in the Dietary Reference Intakes for Japanese was investigated. Results: FFS significantly correlated with most of 29 nutrients investigated, except for carbohydrate and sodium, and inversely correlated with alcohol. FFS categorized into tertiles was significantly associated with many of 29 nutrients, except for carbohydrates, n-3 unsaturated fat, vitamin D, vitamin B12, sodium, and manganese, and inversely associated with alcohol. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that a higher FFS significantly decreased the odds of EAR deficiencies of vitamin A, thiamine, vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, and zinc. The calculated cutoff values of FFS for EAR deficiencies were 17 for vitamin A, vitamin C, and calcium or 18 for thiamine, magnesium, and zinc. Conclusion: Based on FFS, this study found that dietary variety was significantly associated with various nutrients and inversely associated with EAR deficiency rates among community-dwelling older adults. These results indicate that improving FFS may help maintain nutritional status, and the simple recommendation of a daily intake of 10 food groups may be useful for community-dwelling older adults.