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Increasing age is accompanied by many changes, including declining functional skeletal muscle health and immune dysfunction. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) are circulating cells that assemble an immune response, but their whole genome transcriptome has not been studied in the context of age-related muscle health. Consequently, this article explored associations between three muscle variables indicative of functional muscle health — maximum handgrip strength (muscle strength), appendicular skeletal muscle mass index (ASMI, muscle mass), and gait speed (physical performance) — and two groups of bioinformatics-generated PBMC gene expression features (gene expression–estimated leukocyte subset proportions and gene clusters). We analyzed cross-sectional data from 95 home-dwelling healthy women ≥ 70 years, using “cell-type identification by estimating relative subsets of RNA transcripts” (CIBERSORT) to estimate leukocyte subset proportions and “weighted correlation network analysis” (WGCNA) to generate gene clusters. Associations were studied using linear regression models and relevant gene clusters were subjected to gene set enrichment analysis using gene ontology. Gait speed and ASMI associated with CIBERSORT-estimated monocyte proportions (β = − 0.090, 95% CI = (− 0.146, − 0.034), p-value = 0.002 for gait speed, and β = − 0.206, 95% CI = (− 0.385, − 0.028), p-value = 0.024 for ASMI), and gait speed associated with CIBERSORT-estimated M2 macrophage proportions (β = − 0.026, 95% CI = (− 0.043, − 0.008), p-value = 0.004). Furthermore, maximum handgrip strength associated with nine WGCNA gene clusters, enriched in processes related to immune function and skeletal muscle cells (β in the range − 0.007 to 0.008, p-values

Dairy is important in many people’s diets. Although all dairy products are made from cow’s milk, various dairy products are made by different processes. This means that they can end up having different nutrients and properties. Researchers and nutritionists usually group all dairy as one food group, but this might miss information about the health effects of eating different dairy products. Immune cells are important to protect us when we get sick. Sometimes, immune cells can be turned on for the wrong reasons and cause too much inflammation, which can lead to diseases. We studied immune cells from people who ate meals with either butter, cheese, whipped cream, or sour cream. After eating cheese and sour cream, immune cells showed fewer signs of inflammatory processes than after eating butter and whipped cream. This may mean that cheese and sour cream could be healthier than butter and whipped cream.