Tocotrienols Supplementation for Postmenopausal Women With Low Muscle Strength

Sarcopenia is a major health issue in postmenopausal women (PMW). The long-term goal is to develop a new strategy featuring a dietary supplement for alleviating sarcopenia in postmenopausal women. The objective is to test a dietary supplement intervention (delta-tocotrienols, TT) for feasibility, and to quantitatively assess its effects on postmenopausal women with sarcopenia. Due to the limited budget, the investigators will not assess appendicular muscle mass in this pilot study and will focus on muscle strength and function. The central hypotheses are that (i) TT supplementation will alleviate age-associated skeletal muscular dysfunction of postmenopausal women with low muscle strength, and (ii) such changes in skeletal muscle are associated with lowered oxidative stress and inflammation wherein the targets are oxylipins (OxL) and endocannabinoids (eCB), and possible modification of gut microbiota. This is a randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled trial. Fifty-two qualified subjects will be assigned to placebo or TT for 24 weeks. There are 4 specific aims (SA) in this study. SA 1 is to evaluate the effects of TT intervention on endurance, strength, function and size of the lower-extremity musculature in PMW with low muscle strength. SA 2 is to measure the effects of TT intervention on oxidative stress and inflammatory levels. SA 3 is to measure the effects of TT intervention on inflammatory OxL and eCB levels in plasma and muscle tissue. SA 4 is to evaluate the effects of TT intervention on abundance and composition of intestinal bacterial in feces. The outcome measures of SA 1 will be assessed at the baseline, after 12 and 24 weeks. The outcome measures of SA 2, SA 3, and SA 4 will be assessed at the baseline and after 24 weeks. In addition, at 0 and 24 weeks, the investigators will monitor (i) compliance by pill count and (ii) changes in lifestyle throughout the study via food intake surveys and physical activity surveys. Descriptive statistics, bivariate tests, and general/generalized linear mixed modeling will be used for the quantitative analysis on the effects of the TT intervention.