Abstract. Sarcopenia is defined as generalized and progressive age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass, muscle strength and physical performance below a defined threshold. In sarcopenia skeletal muscle mass - the largest body organ - is failing in its function and the term "muscle failure" was suggested.
Sarcopenia affects your musculoskeletal system and is a major factor in increased frailty, falls and fractures. These conditions can lead to hospitalizations and surgeries, which increase the risk of complications including death.
Sarcopenia has been established as a predictor of poor outcomes in various clinical settings. It is particularly prevalent in heart failure, a clinical syndrome that poses significant challenges to health care worldwide. Despite this, sarcopenia remains overlooked and undertreated in cardiology practice.
Sarcopenia is associated with cognitive impairment, defined as a decline in one or more cognitive domains as language, memory, reasoning, social cognition, planning, making decisions, and solving problems.
Sarcopenia is closely related to cardiovascular disease, which affects each other's course of disease. In addition, CVDs aggravates the adverse outcomes of sarcopenia, including falls, fracture, frailty, cachexia, hospitalization and mortality.
Recent evidence, however, shows that chronic low-grade inflammation also contributes to the loss of muscle mass, strength and functionality, referred to as sarcopenia, as it affects both muscle protein breakdown and synthesis through several signaling pathways.
Although studies have demonstrated that sarcopenia is linked to neurological diseases in recent years, little attention has been made to the nervous system's potential role in the etiology or treatment of sarcopenia.
Recently, sarcopenia was also observed to occur with increasing age and may cause pain [18], [19]; therefore, systemic aging changes as causing chronic pain have clinical implications.
Indeed, people affected by sarcopenic obesity have a high risk of osteoporosis and fragility fracture, as well as other metabolic alterations resulting from changes in their body composition closely associated with high morbidity and mortality.
Symptoms and Causes of Sarcopenia
Symptoms can include weakness and loss of stamina, which can interfere with physical activity. Reduced activity further shrinks muscle mass.
The main clinical consequences of sarcopenia relate with functional independence. Thus, the sarcopenic elderly has greater difficulty walking, or do it more slowly, climbing up stairs, or doing basic daily living activities. These difficulties increase the risk for falls and, thus, fractures.
People with sarcopenia expect to live a higher proportion of years with disabilities. Sarcopenic men until 70 years expected to live a higher proportion of years with disability, compared to sarcopenic women. Monitoring sarcopenia among older people may help to identify individuals with higher risk of disability onset.
Sarcopenia is also associated with functional decline (pooled OR of 6 studies 3.03 (95% CI 1.80–5.12)), a higher rate of falls (2/2 studies found a significant association) and a higher incidence of hospitalizations (1/1 study).
The muscular system is the body system responsible for movement. The muscles are attached to bones and make up important organs, like the heart, digestive organs and blood vessels.
Although cachexia predominantly affects skeletal muscle, which comprises almost half of the body weight, it also damages other organs such as adipose tissue, liver, brain, gut, pancreas, bone, and heart.
Patients with liver cirrhosis and, in particular, those with liver failure are at high risk of reduced muscle mass and strength/function, otherwise known as sarcopenia.
Age-related sarcopenia is a common health problem, so evaluation and measurement of sarcopenia are important for clinical research and treatment strategies [2,4]. Back pain is one of the most common musculoskeletal symptoms of many diseases, including sarcopenia [5].
“Sarcopenia with limited mobility” is a syndrome not a disease. Sarcopenia with limited mobility is defined as a person with muscle loss whose walking speed is equal to or less than 1 m/s or who walks less than 400 m during a 6-minute walk.
Exercise can help prevent sarcopenia.
Both resistance and aerobic training have been shown to improve overall health and wellness, no matter your age. But the only proven method for the prevention and improvement of sarcopenia is progressive resistance training.
Although some sarcopenias are a natural consequence of Aging, others are preventable. Studies show sarcopenia can be reversed, and muscle loss decreased. A healthy diet and reasonable exercise can reverse sarcopenia, which increases lifespan and improve quality of life.
ACE inhibitors block the production of AngII and potentially inhibit the development of sarcopenia by inhibiting AngII mediated muscle atrophy. ACE inhibitors are common drugs to treat cardiovascular diseases and prevent strokes for many years, during which their effect on promoting muscle function has been exposed.
In addition, geriatric specialists, in particular, are now trying to establish the age-related loss of muscles as a medical condition under the name sarcopenia, from the Greek for loss of flesh. Simply put, sarcopenia is to muscle what osteoporosis is to bone.
Introduction: Sarcopenia is the loss of muscular mass, strength and function. Autoimmune sarcopenia refers to excessive weight loss, associated with severe muscular wasting due to an increase in proinflammatory cytokines.
Sarcopenia is associated with increased adverse outcomes, including falls, functional decline, frailty, and mortality [5]. A few cross-sectional studies have shown that sarcopenia might be a good indicator of poor cognitive function and dementia [6,7,8].
Sarcopenia is a comprehensive degenerative disease with the progressive loss of skeletal muscle mass with age, accompanied by the loss of muscle strength and muscle dysfunction. As a new type of senile syndrome, sarcopenia seriously threatens the health of the elderly.