Association of healthy lifestyle patterns with changes in physical frailty and subjective cognitive function among community-dwelling older adults - a 3-year longitudinal study

Sep 30, 2026

Older adults show diverse, interacting lifestyle habits, yet evidence remains limited on how healthy lifestyle patterns shape trajectories of physical frailty and subjective cognitive function. This 3-year longitudinal study evaluated community-dwelling adults aged 65+ in suburban Japan using latent class analysis to identify lifestyle patterns and generalized estimating equations to test associations. Three patterns were derived and tracked, revealing differing risks for frailty and subjective cognitive changes over time.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Background

Yang et al. BMC Geriatrics (2026) 26:25 BMC Geriatrics [https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-025-06748-1](https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-025-06748-1) RESEARCH Open Access Association of healthy lifestyle patterns with changes in physical frailty and subjective cognitive function among communitydwelling older adults: a 3-year longitudinal study Mengjiao Yang1,2†, Yang Liu3†, Munenori Matsumoto4, Dandan Jiao5, Zhu Zhu6, Xiang Li7, Mingyu Cui8, Jinrui Zhang2, Meiling Qian2, Lujiao Huang2,9 and Tokie Anme10* Abstract Background Older adults have different lifestyle habits, and some of these habits are intertwined. However, research on lifestyle patterns and their impact on physical frailty and subjective cognitive function is still limited. In this study, we aimed to assess the effect of healthy lifestyle patterns on changes in physical frailty and subjective cognitive function over time in community-dwelling older adults. Methods We used data from longitudinal surveys (2014–2017) involving independently mobile older adults aged ≥ 65 years in suburban Japan. Healthy lifestyle factors included smoking status, alcohol consumption status, exercise, social participation, and dietary diversity. Physical frailty and cognitive function were assessed using the Kihon Checklist. Latent class analysis was used to identify lifestyle patterns and generalized estimating equations were used to evaluate the associations with 3-year changes in outcomes. Results Among 757 participants (mean age 73.27 ± 6.59 years, 53 . 8% female), three lifestyle patterns were identified:“Low Exercise, Socially Inactive”(20 . 3%),“High Smoking and Alcohol Consumption”(6 . 6%), and“Healthy Lifestyle”(73 . 1%) . Over 3 years, compared to the Healthy Lifestyle group, the Low Exercise, Socially Inactive group had higher physical frailty scores (β = 0 .408, 95% confidence interval [CI: 0 . 197, 0 . 619]) and subjective cognitive function scores (β = 0 . 259, 95% CI [0 . 122, 0 . 397]) . The High Smoking and Alcohol Consumption group also showed increased subjective cognitive function scores (β = 0 . 196, 95% CI [0 . 017, 0 . 376]) . Conclusions Different lifestyles were associated with different health risks in older adults. These lifestyle patterns, such as low physical activity and social participation, were associated with increased physical frailty and subjective †Mengjiao Yang and Yang Liu contributed equally to this work and they are first authors. *Correspondence: Tokie Anme[tokieanme@gmail.com](tokieanme@gmail.com) Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit [http://creati](http://creati)[vecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/](vecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.)[.](vecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.) Yang et al. BMC Geriatrics (2026) 26:25 Page 2 of 11 cognitive decline. These findings suggest that latent class analysis may be useful for identifying lifestyle patterns that could inform the development of targeted interventions to

FAQs

What was the study’s main objective?

To assess how healthy lifestyle patterns affect changes over time in physical frailty and subjective cognitive function among community-dwelling older adults.

How were lifestyle patterns identified?

Latent class analysis was used to identify lifestyle patterns based on smoking status, alcohol consumption, exercise, social participation, and dietary diversity.

What did the results show about different lifestyle patterns?

Compared with the Healthy Lifestyle group, the Low Exercise, Socially Inactive group showed higher physical frailty and subjective cognitive function scores, and the High Smoking and Alcohol Consumption group showed increased subjective cognitive function scores over three years.

Sep 30, 2026

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