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

Aging is associated with a decline in muscle mass, strength, and physical function, leading to muscle mass loss and weakness. These concerns can impact an individual's functional independence and quality of life (QOL). Dietary protein stimulates muscle protein growth. Current studies suggest that optimal protein intake for older adults is greater than the Recommended Dietary Allowance. Barriers to consuming protein-rich foods in older adults include reductions in taste and smell, dentition, dexterity, and changes in living situation. Therefore, nutritional interventions are needed to effectively improve eating behaviors, diet quality, and stimulate muscle growth and strength. These interventions will help prevent, manage, and promote muscle mass loss recovery. Older adults may not be aware of their changing nutrient needs and therefore may lack the skills to prepare nutritionally adequate foods properly. Cooking demonstrations, or culinary medicine (CM), can help teach healthy cooking to reduce potential red meat consumption barriers and improve community-dwelling older adults' dietary habits. Thus, CM can be a novel strategy to improve diet quality in older adults and promote and augment at-home cooking. CM is an evidenced-base field that combines skills of preparing, cooking, and presenting food with the science of medicine. This field can help to accomplish potential eating behaviors and health outcome improvements. A tailored CM program can be an effective strategy that could reduce barriers in protein intake that will enable older adults to age well and productively.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Sarcopenia
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Culinary Medicine; Behavioral: Control

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 56
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Texas
    • Lubbock, Texas, United States, 79409
      • Texas Tech University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 65 years and older (Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• 65 years and older
• physically active
• able to cook for oneself
• willing to complete two blood draws

Exclusion Criteria:

• <65 years old
• sedentary lifestyle
• bleeding disorder
• heart pacemaker
• type 1 diabetics and type 2 diabetics taking insulin
• current smokers
• amputees

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Culinary Medicine; Those in this group will receive culinary medicine, which includes cooking videos and educational videos to help educate on ways to increase protein intake through lean ground beef.	Behavioral: Culinary Medicine; The CM-group will receive weekly cooking demonstrations and education videos via electronic links for 16 weeks, and three nutrition education based on the content of the Nutrition Care Manual from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics to show age-appropriate recipes with correct preparation methods and different cooking methods for lean ground red meat to increase protein consumption.
Other: Control; This group will only receive recipes containing lean ground beef to help increase protein intake.	Behavioral: Control; The CN-group will receive weekly recipes via electronic links without the culinary medicine intervention.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA)	DXA will measure full body muscle mass and fat mass in grams.	Baseline and change from baseline muscle mass and fat mass at 4 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Protein questionnaire	The subject will fill out an online modified version of the rapid self-administered dietary protein food frequency questionnaire. This questionnaire contains 20-items evaluating the weekly intake of different types of meat, dairy, eggs, beans to provide the weekly protein intake in grams.	Baseline and through study completion, an average of 4 months
Cooking Effectiveness Questionnaire	Questionnaire to record effectiveness of culinary medicine cooking videos based on a scale of from "completely confident" to "not confident at all"	Baseline and through study completion, an average of 4 months
Body mass index in kg/m^2	Weight in kg and height in meters will be used to calculate BMI	Baseline and change from baseline BMI at 4 months
Weight in lbs	Weight will be measure to the nearest 0.1 lbs	Baseline and change from baseline weight at 4 months
Height in inches	Height will be measured to the nearest 0.1 in using a stadiometer.	Baseline
Steps	Subjects will be provided a Garmin Vivofit 4 watch to monitor their steps throughout the study	through study completion, an average of 4 months
Grip strength	Grip strength will be measured by a handheld dynamometer. The subject will be asked to used the handheld dynamometer three times for each to obtain the average of the three test results.	Baseline and change from baseline grip strength at 4 months
Physical activity questionnaire	Community Healthy Activities Model Program for Seniors (CHAMPS) is 41-items that assess the weekly frequency and duration of various physical activities typically undertaken by older adults. Each question ask how many times a week the participant partake in the activity then ask how many total hours a week the participant did the activity. The frequency per week of all exercise-related activities were calculated by the sum frequency scores/week for each of the activities. The higher the score, the better the outcome	Baseline and change from baseline CHAMPS at 4 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Texas Tech University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): June 1, 2022
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 4, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): January 31, 2023

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 7, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 21, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): October 26, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): August 4, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 2, 2023
• Last Verified: August 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: muscle strength; protein intake; Culinary medicine; muscle synthesis
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Nervous System Diseases; Neurologic Manifestations; Neuromuscular Manifestations; Pathological Conditions, Anatomical; Muscular Atrophy; Atrophy; Sarcopenia
• Other Study ID Numbers: Muscle Culinary Medicine

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No