Relação entre os valores de proteína C-reativa-us, leucócitos e linfócitos e o consumo alimentar habitual de vitaminas com ação antioxidante em idosos: um estudo epidemiológico clínico

Abstract

The intake of vitamins with antioxidant effect may contribute to the betterment of the elderly s health, well-being, and longevity. In this context, the present research had as it main objective to assess the relation among high sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-CRP), leukocytes and lymphocytes and the habitual eating intake of vitamins with antioxidant effect, while taking into consideration the lack of study on it. The cross-sectional epidemiological design was the one adopted using a stratified representative sample of the elderly population from the city of João Pessoa/Paraíba/Brazil. The study included 174 elderly people aged between 60 and 90 years old, from different socioeconomic conditions, with or without chronic-degenerative diseases, taking some medicine or not. Questionnaires were applied to obtain socioeconomic, demographic, epidemiological and food consumption information and there were nutritional assessment and biochemical analyzes. Regarding the habitual intake of vitamins with antioxidant effect, the average consumption of vitamin A, β-carotene, vitamin E and vitamin C were 1994,39±1421,24 (μg RAE/day), 5959,29±4739,66 (μg/day), 6,01±4,44 (mg/day) e 162,10±118,12 (mg/day), respectively. To verify the correlation among the variables of the study, Spearman correlation coefficient was used. There was a negative correlation between the values of leukocytes and vitamin E (r = -0.29, p = 0.0316), β - carotene (r = -0.32, p = 0.0189) and vitamin A (r = - 0.36, p = 0.0062). No significant correlation was found between the values of leukocyte and vitamin C, as well as between PCR-us and the habitual eating intake of these vitamins. No relation was found among study variables when the multiple linear regression was applied. Based on the correlations found, for the first time in elderly, among the values of leukocytes with vitamin B, β-carotene, and vitamin E, the intake of these vitamins would be even more taking into consideration also its importance in the adequacy of the leukocyte values.