The associations of alcohol, coffee and tobacco consumption with gait in a community-dwelling population.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Gait is an important health indicator, relating strongly to the risk of falling, morbidity and mortality. In a community-dwelling population, we investigated associations of alcohol, coffee and tobacco consumption with gait. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Two thousand forty-six non-demented participants from the Rotterdam Study underwent gait assessment by electronic walkway. We measured gait velocity and Global Gait, which is the average of seven gait domains: Rhythm, Phases, Variability, Pace, Tandem, Turning and Base of Support. Alcohol, coffee and tobacco consumption was assessed by questionnaires. With analysis of covariance, we investigated associations of consumption of alcoholic beverages, coffee consumption and smoking with Global Gait, gait velocity and the seven individual gait domains. RESULTS: In all, 81.9% of participants drank alcohol, 92.4% drank coffee, 17.3% were current smokers and 50.9% were past smokers. Moderate alcohol consumption (1-3 glasses per day) associated with better gait, as measured by Global Gait (0.20 standard deviations (s.d.) (95% confidence interval: 0.10; 0.31)), gait velocity (2.65 cm/s (0.80; 4.50)), Rhythm and Variability. Consuming high amounts of coffee (>3 cups per day) associated with better Global Gait (0.18 s.d. (0.08; 0.28)), gait velocity (2.63 cm/s (0.80; 4.45)), Pace, Turning and Variability. Current smoking associated with worse Global Gait (-0.11 s.d. (-0.21; 0.00)), gait velocity (-3.47 cm/s (-5.33; -1.60)), Rhythm and Pace, compared with non-smokers. CONCLUSIONS: In a community-dwelling population, consuming >1 cup of coffee and 1-3 glasses of alcohol relate to better gait, whereas smoking is related to worse gait. Further studies are required to evaluate whether interventions targeting substance consumption may aid to prevent or reduce gait deterioration and thereby related health problems.

Gait patterns in a community-dwelling population aged 50 years and older.

Poor gait is an important risk factor for falls and associated with higher morbidity and mortality. It is well established that older age is associated with worse gait, but it remains unclear at what age this association is first seen. Moreover, previous studies focused mainly on normal walking, but gait also encompasses turning and tandem walking. In a large study of community-dwelling middle-aged and elderly persons we investigated the association of age with gait, focusing on normal walking, turning and tandem walking. In 1500 persons aged 50 years and over, we measured gait using an electronic walkway. Participants performed normal walks, turning and a tandem walk. With principal components analysis of 30 variables we summarized gait into five known gait factors: Rhythm, Variability, Phases, Pace and Base of Support; and uncovered two novel gait factors: Tandem and Turning. The strongest associations with age were found for Variability (difference in Z-score -0.29 per 10 years increase (95% confidence interval: -0.34; -0.24)), Phases (-0.31 per 10 years (-0.36; -0.27)) and Tandem (-0.25 per 10 years (-0.30; -0.20)). Additionally, these factors already showed association with the youngest age groups, from 55 to 60 years of age and older. Our study shows that Variability, Phases and Tandem have the strongest association with age and are the earliest to demonstrate a poorer gait pattern with higher age. Future research should further investigate how these gait factors relate with gait-related diseases in their earliest stages.