Association of nutritional status and oral health with frailty in community-dwelling older adults

Abstract Objective To analyze the association of nutritional status and oral health with frailty in community-dwelling older adults seen in primary care. Methods A cross-sectional study of older adult users, randomly selected from 5 healthcare clinics in Jundiaí city, São Paulo state, Brazil, was conducted. Information was collected on sociodemographics, health behaviors, oral health (number of teeth, masticatory function), clinical data, cognitive performance (10-CS), nutritional status (MNA), sarcopenia (SARC-F+CC), and frailty (FRAIL-BR). Multinomial multiple logistic regression between the frailty outcome and independent variables was applied (p<0.05). Results Of the sample of 211 participants, 72% were female, mean age was 70.41 (69.4-71.4) years, 24.6% were frail, 37.9% prefrail and 37.4% robust. The following factors were associated with frailty in the final model: use of ≥4 medications (OR=3.29; 95%CI:1.09-9.91), feelings of sadness (OR=3.02; 95%CI:1.11-8.19), BMI - underweight (OR=10.30; 95%CI:3.03-34.94) or obese (OR=3.54; 95%CI:1.12-11.19), and nutritional status – at risk of malnutrition or malnourished (OR=6.81; 95%CI:2.21-21.02). Good masticatory function (OR=0.26; 95%CI:0.06-0.98) and engagement in physical activity (OR=0.25; 95%CI:0.09-0.71) were negatively associated with the frailty outcome. Conclusion Non-eutrophic nutritional status was associated with greater frailty, whereas oral health (good masticatory function) was associated with lower frailty, even after adjusting for sociodemographic and health behavior factors.