Epidemiological Characteristics And Factors Associated With Sarcopenia In Suburb-dwelling Older People

Objective: The aim of the present study was 1) to examine the prevalence and factors associated with sarcopenia in an elderly Chinese suburb dwelling population; 2) examine the incidence of sarcopenia and associated factors over a 1-year period in an elderly Chinese suburban population.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 1,069 older participants aged ?60 years from two suburban communities in Chadian and Hougu, Tianjin. All subjects were invited to participate in our objective measurements and questionnaire survey. The objective measurements included height, weight, body composition, muscular strength, physical activity, etc.; questionnaire collected information included general population information(gender, age, pregnancies, level of education, etc.), social behavior characteristics(smoking history, drinking history, fall history, daily activity levels depressive tendencies, nutritional status, etc.) and medical history(diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease, peptic ulcer, etc.). The Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia criteria was applied to investigate the prevalence of sarcopenia in the elderly population of this region. Associations between the prevalence and factors associated with sarcopenia were explored through logistic regression. A year later, this cohort study was conducted on 661 suburb-dwelling participants in Chadian, Tianjin. We collected the relative information again, and investigate the incidence of sarcopenia in the elderly population of this region. Associations between the incidence and factors associated with sarcopenia were explored through stepwise regression analysis.Results: In the cross-sectional study, the overall prevalence of sarcopenia was 9.3% in this region, 6.4% for men and 11.5% for women. After adjusting for various factors,age(70-79 years: OR = 2.19, 95% CI = 0.86-5.60; ?80 years: OR = 10.18, 95% CI = 2.93-35.29), BMI(24.0-27.9 kg/cm2: OR = 0.40, 95% CI = 0.17-0.95; ?28 kg/cm2: OR = 0.11, 95% CI = 0.02-0.65), and diabetes(OR = 5.04, 95% CI = 1.70-14.89) were associated with prevalence of sarcopenia in male. Besides age(70-79 years: OR = 6.39, 95% CI = 3.15-12.95; ?80 years: OR = 135.74,9 5% CI = 27.29-675.15), BMI(24.0-27.9 kg/cm2: OR = 0.32, 95% CI = 0.16-0.63; ?28 kg/cm2: OR = 0.03, 95% CI = 0.01-0.21), and diabetes(OR = 2.36, 95% CI = 1.06-5.25), smoking(OR = 2.78, 95% CI = 1.12-6.91), alcohol consumption(OR = 10.60, 95% CI = 1.75-64.24) and peptic ulcer(OR = 5.58, 95% CI = 2.13-14.59) and were also associated with prevalence of sarcopenia. In the follow-up a year later, the annual incidence of sarcopenia was 4.0%. After correction for confounding factors, age(OR = 1.23, 95% CI = 1.10-1.39), female(OR = 21.07, 95% CI = 2.35-188.39) and BMI(OR = 0.81, 95% CI = 0.69-0.96) were associated with the incidence of sarcopenia; age(OR = 0.54, 95% CI = 0.34-0.87) and widowed(OR = 0.01, 95% CI = 0.01-0.94) were associated with the reversal rate of sarcopenia.Conclusions: The Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia criterion is useful for defining sarcopenia, and our data suggest that the prevalence of sarcopenia in the general elderly suburb-dwelling population is high. Moreover, we find that high body mass index is inversely associated with the likelihood of being sarcopenic and that several others factors such as diabetes, peptic ulcer, smoking and drinking habits increase the prevalence of sarcopenia. Sarcopenia incidence increased with age, and women were more likely to have sarcopenia. A higher BMI is also associated with a lower incidence of sarcopenia. Maintaining a healthy weight and decreasing the risk of developing chronic disease could be beneficial in the prevention of sarcopenia.