A NEW 15-year study has found that diet quality significantly influences the progression of chronic disease in older adults, highlighting the potential of dietary interventions to reduce the rate of multimorbidity accumulation.
Using data from 2,473 community-dwelling individuals aged ≥60 years in the Swedish SNAC-K cohort, researchers assessed the long-term impact of four dietary patterns on the development of multiple chronic conditions. The study focused on the Mediterranean-DASH Diet Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND), the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), the Alternative Mediterranean Diet (aMED), and the Empirical Dietary Inflammatory Index (EDII). Multimorbidity was measured as the total number of chronic diseases, further classified into cardiovascular, neuropsychiatric, and musculoskeletal categories. Researchers used longitudinal regression models to estimate the association between dietary adherence and annual disease accumulation.
Participants with higher adherence to the MIND, AHEI, and aMED diets had a significantly slower rate of overall chronic disease accumulation. Specifically, each standard deviation increase in adherence to these diets was associated with a reduction in the yearly rate of disease accumulation: −0.049 (95% CI: −0.065 to −0.032) for MIND, −0.051 (−0.068 to −0.035) for AHEI, and −0.031 (−0.048 to −0.014) for aMED. In contrast, higher adherence to the pro-inflammatory EDII was associated with a faster accumulation of chronic conditions (0.053, 95% CI: 0.035 to 0.071). These associations held for cardiovascular and neuropsychiatric diseases but not for musculoskeletal conditions. Subgroup analyses revealed that the strength of these associations varied by sex and age, suggesting that personalised dietary strategies may be particularly beneficial for targeted groups.
This large prospective study reinforces the role of diet quality in shaping long-term health outcomes in older adults. Encouraging adherence to anti-inflammatory dietary patterns could be a viable strategy to reduce disease burden and guide public health and clinical recommendations for ageing populations.
Reference
Abbad-Gomez D et al. Dietary patterns and accelerated multimorbidity in older adults. Nat Aging. 2025; DOI:10.1038/s43587-025-00929-8.
