Prevalência de adição por alimentos em uma população idosa e sua associação com sintomas depressivos

Abstract

Food Addiction (FA) has been widely studied by the scientific community, and although there is no consensus on the construct, it proves that it seems to be a compulsive and hyperphagic consumption of hyperpalatable foods that promote intense activation of the central nervous system, leading to to dependence, with characteristics similar to what occurs in substance-addictive disorders. In different substances, it presents a positive association with high consumption of ultra-processed foods, obesity, female sex and depression in the adolescent and adult population. However, until now, there were no studies evaluating AdA in an exclusively elderly population, and in view of population aging, it is essential to identify risk factors that may interfere with the healthdisease process of the elderly, who are more vulnerable both to the development of non-communicable chronic diseases. transmissible diseases and overweight in relation to depression, whose prevalence is higher than that observed in younger people. Thus, this study aimed to identify the prevalence of AdA in the elderly and to verify whether there is an association between AdA and depressive symptoms in the elderly population. This work is an observational, cross-sectional study, which evaluated a sample of people aged ≥ 60 years, through home visits, and is part of a larger study entitled: “I Diagnosis of Alagoas on Health, Nutrition and Quality of Life of the Elderly Person”. The estimated n for AdA prevalence was 252 and 397 for assessing the association between variables. Sociodemographic data, health conditions, depressive symptoms (GDS-15), AdA (mYFAS2.0) and anthropometric data were collected. The prevalence of AdA was 0.6% (n=2), a value lower than expected, the prevalence of depressive symptoms 10 was 24.3% (n=83). It was not possible to perform a logistic regression to assess the association between Ada and depressive symptoms due to the low n with the outcome, but there was a positive association between AdA symptoms and depressive symptoms, regardless of gender, BMI and living alone (OR=4, 37 [95%CI=1.95 - 9.78]). This was the first study that evaluated AdA in an exclusive sample of elderly people and identified a very low tendency towards food addiction among younger age groups. Longitudinal and neuroimaging studies are needed to understand the variables that can influence this drastic difference.