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Epidemiology of Sarcopenia
Author(s) -
III L. Joseph Melton,
Khosla Sundeep,
Crowson Cynthia S.,
O'Connor Michael K.,
O'Fallon W. Michael,
Riggs B. Lawrence
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of the american geriatrics society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.992
H-Index - 232
eISSN - 1532-5415
pISSN - 0002-8614
DOI - 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2000.tb04719.x
Subject(s) - sarcopenia , medicine , lean body mass , epidemiology , muscle mass , population , demography , cross sectional study , gerontology , cutoff , ageing , physical therapy , environmental health , pathology , body weight , physics , quantum mechanics , sociology
OBJECTIVES : To examine patterns of muscle mass change with aging and to estimate the prevalence of sarcopenia. DESIGN : Cross‐sectional survey. SETTING : Population‐based study in Rochester, Minnesota. PARTICIPANTS : Age‐stratified sample of men and women from the community. MEASUREMENTS : Muscle mass estimated from total body scans by dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry. Sarcopenia was defined as muscle mass more than 2 standard deviations below the sex‐specific young‐normal mean. RESULTS : Total lean body mass (exclusive of bone) and total skeletal muscle mass both were greater in men than women and declined linearly with age as judged from these cross‐sectional data. Adjustment for height reduced the gender difference. The age‐ and sex‐adjusted prevalence of sarcopenia varied from 6 to 15% among subjects 65 years of age or over, depending on the muscle mass parameter that was evaluated, but prevalence rates were quite sensitive to the normal values used to define cutoff levels. Subjects with sarcopenia appeared to have more physical limitations than the others. CONCLUSIONS : Late in life, a substantial portion of the population reaches low levels of muscle mass that are associated with increased physical disability. However, additional efforts are needed to validate an operational definition of sarcopenia. J Am Geriatr Soc 48:625–630, 2000 .