Supplement-based nutritional strategies to tackle frailty: A multifactorial, double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled trial.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Copper (Supplement).

Four integrated, sub-investigations were conducted to compare: 1) leucine vs. placebo; 2) whey vs. soy vs. placebo; 3) creatine vs. whey vs. creatine plus whey vs. placebo; 4) women vs. men in response to whey.

Why It Was Studied

Sarcopenia plays a central role in the development of frailty syndrome.

Data described in the manuscript will be made available upon request pending application.

Who Took Part

The study group was 3 women.

The age groups tagged for this paper are older adults, both men and women.

Sub-investigations 1 to 3 were conducted in women, only.

Two-hundred participants (154 women/46 men, mean age 72 ± 6 years) underwent a twice-a-week, resistance training program.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Copper (Supplement) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Blinding on both sides kept the women and researchers unaware of who received Copper (Supplement).

Some women received a placebo instead of Copper (Supplement), giving a reference point.

This was a single-site 16-week, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial conducted at the Clinical Hospital, School of Medicine - University of São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The main outcomes were muscle function (assessed by dynamic and isometric strength and functional tests) and lean mass (assessed by DXA).

Muscle cross-sectional area, health-related quality of life, bone and fat mass, and biochemical markers were also assessed.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Adaptation, Physiological, Brazil, Creatine, Dietary Supplements, Frail Elderly, Frailty and Leucine.

Author keywords: Anabolic resistance, Muscle waste, Protein and Sarcopenia.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Copper (Supplement) in 3 women.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Its findings take up roughly 8 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2021 (Clinical nutrition (Edinburgh, Scotland)), a journal based in England.

More context: the Copper (Supplement) compound page, all human trials.