2022 HOPE Foundation Small Project Grant

Posted by on 9 March 2022

HOPE Foundation Small Project Grant   

In 2021, Dr Karen Mumme (PhD) was awarded our inaugural small project grant of $10,000. This was initiated by the HOPE Board as a way to support researchers and/or clinicians to undertake small projects in Gerontology and well being research. The aim being to encourage and develop research that may lead to larger projects on aspects of ageing, that will benefit New Zealanders.

Karen completed her PhD at Massey University in 2021. The PhD project covered the main objectives of the REACH study (Researching Eating, Activity, and Cognitive Health). These objectives examined the associations between dietary patterns (using a statistical approach) and their associations with cognitive function and metabolic syndrome in older, community dwelling adults in the New Zealand population. Prior to this, Karen worked as a corporate accountant but always had a strong interest in population health and food, which has led her to this path where she hopes to make a difference.

Assessing diet quality in older New Zealand adults - and its association with metabolic syndrome and cognitive health

Principal Investigator: Karen Mumme
Key co-investigators: Kathryn Beck, Jamie de Seymour. College of Health, Massey University, Auckland  

WE KNOW several things. Firstly, what we eat affects our health. Secondly, we have dietary guide- lines to guide our eating choices. Thirdly, our lifespan is increasing and fourthly the population in New Zealand is ageing.

Unfortunately, a longer lifespan does not always equate to a healthy longer lifespan and many people are living with metabolic disturbances and reduced cognitive function in their later years.

Healthy eating is related to health ageing. The recent NZ Ministry of Health guidelines suggest healthy eating patterns in older adults. At Massey University, these guidelines are currently being adapted to a dietary pattern index where an individual or population’s complete diet can be measured and scored by a questionnaire.

The index, an easy-to-use tool, can be used in both a research and clinical setting where the dietary factor is often overlooked. This project will be the first study to use this dietary pattern index to explore associations between the diet quality of older New Zealand adults and health outcomes.

The objectives of the project are to:

1. apply, in a research setting, the newly developed index to measure diet quality in older adults.
2. examine the association between the diet quality and metabolic syndrome and cognitive function in older adults.
3. introduce the eating index and share the results with the public, health professionals, and other researchers of ageing.

We hypothesise good adherence to the New Zealand dietary guidelines, represented by higher scores on the dietary pattern index will be inversely associated with the risk of metabolic syndrome and positively associated with good cognitive health.