(P18-048-24) Sarcopenia and Inflammaging, the Effect of Functional Food for Promoting Healthy Aging

Objectives: Sarcopenia is a disorder characterized by a generalized reduction in muscle mass and strength and related to important negative clinical outcomes, with a series of economic and social implications, including impaired mobility, loss of quality of life, hospitalization and death. Inflammaging is a state of low-grade systemic inflammation which plays an important role in age-related diseases as sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is also linked to chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome and inflammatory signals, coming from these diseases, influence negatively skeletal muscle. The present study discusses whether, in the nutritional context, supplementation with brown algae of the Ecklonia species within functional foods can improve the condition of inflammation and sarcopenia in a old coohort study.

Methods: A blindly nutritional intervention for four weeks on a court of 48 volunteer subjects (aged spanned between 60 to 75 years old) divided into two experimental groups, control lettuce group and lettuce group biostimulated with Ecklonia species brown seaweed. The subjects consumed 100 grams of lettuce with or without biostimulation for 4 weeks. Blood samples and anthropometric and nutritional analysis were conducted at the beginning of recruitment and after 4 weeks.

Results: The results showed changes in biochemical and anthropometric markers of sarcopenia. Subjects who consumed for four weeks biostimulated lettuce showed a reduction in levels of cortisol, inflammatory biomarkers such as c-reactive protein (CRP) and IL-6. With respect to vitamin D, the biostimulated cohort showed increase concentration after four weeks. In the context of anthropometric analysis, there was an increase in muscle mass and decrease in fat mass in the subjects who consumed biostimulated lettuce.

Conclusions: These preliminary data suggest that brown seaweed supplementation within functional foods may be a functional choice that can be proposed to improve sarcopenia associated with aging and perhaps age associated disease.

Funding Sources: University funding source, University of Palermo FFR2023