Nutritional status, physical performance, and disability in the elderly of the Peruvian Andes: reply to Ortiz
Aging Clin Exp Res
Nutritional status, physical performance, and?disability in?the?elderly of?the?Peruvian Andes: reply to?Ortiz
Nicola?Veronese 0 2
Alessandra?Tramontano 0 2
Dear Editor 0 2
0 National Research Council, Neuroscience Institute , Aging Branch, Via Giustiniani 2, 35128 Padova , Italy
1 Nicola Veronese
2 Department of Medicine (DIMED), University of Padova , Padova , Italy
Vol.:(011233456789)
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We thank Dr. Ortiz for his careful reading of our recently
published work [
1
] in which we assessed the impact of
malnutrition on physical activity and performance and for his
thoughtful comments. This author correctly reported the
importance of depression as risk factor for poor physical
activity.
Depression is a common condition in the elderly?
population [
2
] and associated with poor physical performance
[
3
]. Thus, its inclusion could have substantially modified
our findings. Even if agree with him regarding the fact that
mental disorders are highly prevalent and often
unrecognized in older Peruvian people, we decided not to include
depression in our analysis mainly for two reasons. First, in
our study, we did not assess depressive mood with any
validated scale. This first point represents an important
limitation of our findings. However, for logistical reasons, all
the medical conditions were self-reported [
4
]. Second, only
one subject reported to have self-reported depression and
used an anti-depressant medication. Thus, again, we could
not use this as confounder of our analyses.
In conclusion, we thank Dr. Ortiz for his careful
comments and suggestions. We agree with him that depression
is often a hidden condition with important health
consequences [
5
], also in mediating the association between
nutrition and poor physical activity. The importance of this
factor, however, should be explored by future studies
specific for Peruvian older people.
Author contributions Veronese and Tramontano wrote the letter.
All the authors have contributed to the manuscript, read it, approved
the final version, and gave permission for their name to be included as
co-author.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest On behalf of all authors, the corresponding
author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval The study was approved by the local ethics
committee.
Informed consent Each participant gave informed consent prior to
the study.
1. Tramontano A , Veronese N , Giantin V et? al ( 2016 ) Nutritional status, physical performance and disability in the elderly of the Peruvian Andes . Aging Clin Exp Res 28 : 1195 - 1201
2. Mecocci P , Cherubini A , Mariani E et? al ( 2004 ) Depression in the elderly: new concepts and therapeutic approaches . Aging Clin Exp Res 16 : 176 - 189
3. Stubbs B , Koyanagi A , Schuch FB et?al ( 2016 ) Physical activity and depression: a large cross-sectional, population-based study across 36 low- and middle-income countries . Acta Psychiatr Scand 134 : 546 - 556
4. Tramontano A , Veronese N , Sergi G et? al ( 2016 ) Prevalence of sarcopenia and associated factors in the healthy older adults of the Peruvian Andes . Arch Gerontol Geriatr 68 : 49 - 54
5. Veronese N , Stubbs B , Noale M et? al ( 2016 ) Adherence to the Mediterranean diet is associated with better quality of life: data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative . Am J Clin Nutr 104 : 1403 - 1409 (...truncated)