Healthy Clinical Trials in San Diego, CA

This study will randomly assign 2,300 older adults on waiting lists at nine Meals on Wheels programs in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and California into two groups who will receive: (a) daily delivery of meals, five days a week or (b) a shipment of 10 frozen meals, every two weeks. Researchers will examine participants' Medicare claims to understand if differences in healthcare utilization occur between the two groups within six months after they start receiving meals. Researchers will also ask participants questions prior to receiving meals, and again at three months, to understand how meals impact their ability to obtain food, their feelings of loneliness, and their overall quality of life. The primary study outcome will be the ratio of days spent in institutional settings (i.e., hospital, nursing home) in the six months after participants begin receiving meals. The secondary outcomes include the ratio of days spent in institutional settings in the three months after participants begin receiving meals, food insecurity, subjective isolation/loneliness, and health-related quality of life. The team will also examine differences in dietary intake between the two groups as an exploratory outcome. Read Less

The increased interest in personalized nutrition has arisen because scientists are beginning to understand subgroup differences in response to the environment including diet. Some suggest that dietary guidance which promotes milk is racially and ethnically insensitive because of higher prevalence of lactose intolerance/maldigestion in non-white groups. Preliminary evidence in Black and White adolescent girls shows that Blacks retain more calcium and excrete more sodium than white girls on a high sodium diet making Whites more vulnerable to osteoporosis and Blacks more vulnerable to hypertension on high salt diets. Adequate dietary calcium is protective for both groups. This project will compare calcium absorption and calcium and sodium excretion from lactose-free milk as part of a controlled diet on higher (usual Western diet) and lower (recommended) salt intakes in Black, White, Hispanic, and Asian adults. Read Less