Published: March 21, 2019 | By Sydney Valentino
Giulia Coletta (BSc.), a summer undergraduate student funded by MIRA, completed a summer project under the supervision of Dr. Janet Pritchard, Department of Kinesiology, delivered a research talk on:
“Prevalence of sarcopenia among active older adults and older adults undergoing joint replacement surgery”
Following, Giulia summarized the take-home points of her talk…
-
Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle as adults age. It is common in Canadian adults, as approximately 25% of older adults are sarcopenic. Sarcopenia increases the risk of loss of independence, falls, fractures and mortality. One major risk of developing sarcopenia is low protein consumption in the diets of older adults.
-
The purpose of her research was to determine: 1) how common sarcopenia is in an active older adult population and in a population of older adults going for total joint replacement surgery, and 2) if older adults are consuming the recommended amounts of protein each day and for each meal.
-
A total of 59 adults older than 65 years of age that were active (37 individuals) and scheduled for total joint replacement surgery of either the hip or knee (25 individuals), completed diet journals to determine their daily dietary protein intake.
-
They found that 14% of active older adults and 44% of participants who had a total joint replacement had low muscle mass. The majority of participants did not consume enough protein each day. Most participants consumed enough protein at dinner but lacked protein at breakfast and lunch.
Please feel free to contact Giulia Coletta (colettj@mcmaster.ca) if you have any questions or would like to discuss future work.
This blog post was first published by the MIRA Trainee Network. Read the ​original article.​​
