Serum folate concentration and health-related quality of life among the elderly in South Korea

• Published in: Health and quality of life outcomes Vol. 19; no. 1; p. 267
• Main Authors: Lee, Eunmi, Park, Sangshin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 20-12-2021; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Activities of daily living; Aged; Alzheimer's disease; Blood pressure; Body mass index; Cell division; Chronic illnesses; Diabetes; Education; Elderly; Family income; Folate; Folic Acid; Food and nutrition; Health aspects; Health-related quality of life; Households; Humans; Hypertension; Interviews; Mental depression; Mortality; Nutrition; Nutrition Surveys; Nutritional status; Older people; Physical fitness; Quality of Life; Questionnaires; Republic of Korea; Requirements; Rheumatoid arthritis; Vitamin B; Republic of Korea; South Korea; Health-related quality of life; Elderly; Folate; Folic acid
• ISSN: 1477-7525; 1477-7525
• DOI: 10.1186/s12955-021-01899-2

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between serum folate concentration and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among the elderly in South Korea.
The data used in this study were drawn from 1,021 participants over 65 years old in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2016-2018. HRQOL was measured by the EQ-5D questionnaire. Participants were divided into tertiles of folate concentration (ranges 1.7-5.6, 5.7-9.4, and 9.5-31.9 ng/mL). We performed multivariable linear regression to examine the relationship between folate and HRQOL, and multivariable logistic regression to examine the relationship between folate and the dimensional problem of HRQOL.
Higher folate concentrations were significantly associated with higher HRQOL in the elderly. The average HRQOL score of the elderly in the highest tertile of the folate level was 0.0289 higher than that of the lowest tertile (coefficient: 0.0289; 95% CI 0.0016, 0.0563). The HRQOL score increased by 0.0174 points when the folate concentration increased by 100%. When analyzing specific dimensions, a significant association with folate concentration was found only for the self-care dimension of HRQOL (odds ratio for self-care problems: 0.63; 95% CI 0.41, 0.99).
The elderly with higher serum folate concentration tended to have higher HRQOL. Among HRQOL dimensions, self-care was only significantly associated with folate concentration.