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Approved research

Food consumption (coffee, dairy products and soft drinks), Mediterranean dietary pattern and risk of falls or hearing loss in the elderly.

Principal Investigator: Mr Marcos Machado Fragua
Approved Research ID: 29009
Approval date: July 15th 2017

Lay summary

The main objective of the proposed research is to evaluate the prospective relationship between the consumption of different foods (specifically: coffee consumption, dairy products, soft drinks and the Mediterranean dietary pattern) and the incident risk of falls and hearing loss in the elderly. Our hypothesis is that diet has a role in the risk of falls and hearing loss. The proposed research tries to clarify the prospective relationships between the consumption of certain foods and the incident risk of falls and hearing loss in the elderly. Falls and hearing loss are frequent problems among the elderly population and also main determinants of the health and quality of life of these individuals. Therefore, assessing the factors that increase or decrease the risk of these problems is relevant because diet and lifestyles are modifiable factors that could prevent these adverse health outcomes. Our research will help to develop nutritional recommendations and food policies aimed to achieve an optimal quality of life in this population. The researchers will use baseline and follow-up data to explore the research hypothesis outlined above. We try to assess the relationship between the different exposures and the outcome events in order to find which of these factors might affect the risk of falls or hearing loss. To achieve this objective, we will use standard statistical methods. For the present research project, we require the participants with information on the follow-up because we will try to study the prospective associations between diet and the incident risk of falls or hearing loss. Since these associations are relevant to the older people, we will only include in our analyses those participants who 60 years in the baseline examination.