Food Insecurity across the Life-Course and Cognitive Function among Older Mexican Adults.

Nutrients

Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, 3715 McClintock Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.

Published: March 2022

Background: Food insecurity remains a global public health problem. Experiencing food insecurity is related to poorer cognitive function among older adults. However, few studies have examined how food insecurity, experienced over the life-course, relates to cognitive function among older adults in Mexico.

Methods: Data came from the 2015 Mexican Health and Aging Study ( = 11,507 adults aged 50 and over). Early- and late-life food insecurity were ascertained by self-report. We evaluated how both measures of food insecurity related to the performance of multiple cognitive tasks (Verbal Learning, Verbal Recall, Visual Scanning, and Verbal Fluency), while controlling for key health and sociodemographic confounders using linear regression.

Results: In descriptive analyses, respondents who experienced food insecurity in either early or late life performed significantly worse on all cognitive tasks when compared to the food secure. In models adjusted for health and sociodemographic confounders, early-life food insecurity predicted worse Verbal Learning performance and late-life food insecurity was associated with poorer Visual Scanning performance.

Conclusions: Food insecurity was related to poorer cognitive function in a nationally representative sample of older adults in Mexico. However, results suggested that the significance of effects depended on cognitive task and when in the life-course food insecurity was experienced.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9002944PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14071462DOI Listing

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