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. 2013;8(3):e60119.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0060119. Epub 2013 Mar 22.

Sarcopenia is independently associated with cardiovascular disease in older Korean adults: the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) from 2009

Sang Ouk Chin  1 , Sang Youl Rhee, Suk Chon, You-Cheol Hwang, In-Kyung Jeong, Seungjoon Oh, Kyu Jeung Ahn, Ho Yeon Chung, Jeong-taek Woo, Sung-Woon Kim, Jin-Woo Kim, Young Seol Kim, Hong-Yup Ahn
Affiliations

Sarcopenia is independently associated with cardiovascular disease in older Korean adults: the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) from 2009

Sang Ouk Chin et al. PLoS One. 2013.

Abstract

Background: The association between sarcopenia and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in elderly people has not been adequately assessed. The aim of this study was to investigate whether CVD is more prevalent in subjects with sarcopenia independent of other well-established cardiovascular risk factors in older Korean adults.

Method: This study utilized the representative Korean population data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) which was conducted in 2009. Subjects older than 65 years of age with appendicular skeletal muscle mass (ASM) determined by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry were selected. The prevalence of sarcopenia in the older Korean adults was investigated, and it was determined whether sarcopenia is associated with CVD independent of other well-known risk factors.

Results: 1,578 subjects aged 65 years and older with the data for ASM were selected, and the overall prevalence of sarcopenia was 30.3% in men and 29.3% in women. Most of the risk factors for CVD such as age, waist circumference, body mass index, fasting plasma glucose and total cholesterol showed significant negative correlations with the ratio between appendicular skeletal muscle mass and body weight. Multiple logistic regression analysis demonstrated that sarcopenia was associated with CVD independent of other well-documented risk factors, renal function and medications (OR, 1.768; 95% CI, 1.075-2.909, P = 0.025).

Conclusions: Sarcopenia was associated with the presence of CVD independent of other cardiovascular risk factors after adjusting renal function and medications.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Prevalence of sarcopenia by gender and age groups; The prevalence trend according to the age group was not significant either in male (P = 0.092) or in female (P = 0.512).
Figure 2
Figure 2. CVD prevalence according to the presence of metabolic syndrome and sarcopenia.
Abbreviation: CVD, cardiovascular diseases; M, metabolic syndrome; S, sarcopenia.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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