RELATIONSHIP OF AGE AND SARCOPENIA OCCURRENCE BASED ON TWO DIFFERENT METHODS FOR SARCOPENIA DIAGNOSIS

Wallison Domingues¹, Ashley Binns¹, & Michelle Gray¹ ¹University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas Sarcopenia is a loss of muscle mass in adults over 65 years of age and is usually associated with a decrease in muscle strength and performance. Muscle mass loss is a continuous process that can start even before the age of 65. However, most of the Sarcopenia diagnosis is focused in adults with age of 65 or older and the diagnosis at earlier age goes undetected. PURPOSE: Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of age and Sarcopenia occurrence using two different Sarcopenia diagnosis methods based on appendicular lean skeletal muscle mass (ASM) assessment. METHODS: ASM measured by Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) was obtained from the University of Arkansas Exercise Science Research Center datasets from previous studies. Subjects were classified as non-sarcopenic or sarcopenic using two different diagnosis methods: ASM adjusted for BMI, and ASM adjusted for height squared (ht²). RESULTS: The dataset consisted of 923 participants (n= 173 males, n= 750 females and age: 40-91 years). The ASM/ht² method had a greater occurrence of subjects classified as sarcopenic (23.08%) compared to ASM/BMI method (9.75%). When investigating the occurrence of Sarcopenia in adults below 65 years of age, 21% were classified as sarcopenic using the ASM/ht² method while 8% were classified as sarcopenic by the ASM/BMI method. Subjects classified as sarcopenic by the ASM/ht² method had a mean age of 58.81 [SD±11.52] compared to a mean age of 61.69 [SD±12.48] by the ASM/BMI method. CONCLUSION: Sarcopenia had a greater occurrence when diagnosed using the ASM/ht² compared to the ASM/BMI criteria and may occur before the age of 65. Therefore, the ASM/ht² criteria appears to be more sensitive to diagnose Sarcopenia in younger adults. Further research is required for a better understanding on how Sarcopenia diagnosis at earlier age may facilitate its treatment and avoid loss in muscle strength and performance