Strong support for a basic diet
By Janet Raloff
Body builders and grannies take note: To preserve muscle, eat salads.
A new study by researchers at the federal Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, at Tufts University in Boston, finds that diets rich in potassium appear to protect muscle. And fruits and veggies are a primo source of dietary potassium.
Bess Dawson-Hughes and her colleagues recruited nearly 400 men and women for a 3-year dietary trial on calcium and vitamin D. The researchers wanted to keep bones strong, so the participants—all 65 or older—would suffer fewer falls and disabling fractures. However, strong muscles also help prevent falls, and those muscles usually begin a seemingly inexorable wasting by age 40 (SN: 8/10/96, p. 90).