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. 2017 Mar;100(3):229-234.
doi: 10.1007/s00223-016-0220-9. Epub 2016 Dec 24.

The Future Prevalence of Sarcopenia in Europe: A Claim for Public Health Action

O Ethgen  1 , C Beaudart  1 , F Buckinx  1 , O Bruyère  1 , J Y Reginster  2
Affiliations

The Future Prevalence of Sarcopenia in Europe: A Claim for Public Health Action

O Ethgen et al. Calcif Tissue Int. 2017 Mar.

Abstract

Sarcopenia is a major public health issue. To convince health policy makers of the emergency to invest in the sarcopenia field, it is of critical importance to produce reliable figures of the expected burden of sarcopenia in the coming years. Age- and gender-specific population projections were retrieved until 2045 from the Eurostat online database (28 European countries). Age- and gender-specific prevalences of sarcopenia were interpolated from a study that compared prevalence estimates according to the different diagnostic cutoffs of the EWGSOP proposed definition. The reported prevalence estimates were interpolated between 65 and 100 years. Interpolated age- and gender-specific estimates of sarcopenia prevalence were then applied to population projections until 2045. Using the definition providing the lowest prevalence estimates, the number of individuals with sarcopenia would rise in Europe from 10,869,527 in 2016 to 18,735,173 in 2045 (a 72.4% increase). This corresponds to an overall prevalence of sarcopenia in the elderly rising from 11.1% in 2016 to 12.9% in 2045. With the definition providing the highest prevalence estimates, the number of individuals with sarcopenia would rise from 19,740,527 in 2016 to 32,338,990 in 2045 (a 63.8% increase), corresponding to overall prevalence rates in the elderly of 20.2% and 22.3% for 2016 and 2045, respectively. We showed that the number of sarcopenic patients will dramatically increase in the next 30 years, making consequences of muscle wasting a major public health issue.

Keywords: Burden of disease; Prevalence; Public health; Sarcopenia.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest

O. Ethgen, C. Beaudart, F. Buckinx, O. Bruyère and J.Y. Reginster declare that they have no conflicts of interest pertaining this particular manuscript.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

For this type of study formal consent is not required.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Prevalence of sarcopenia according to the different cutoffs of the EWGSOP definition
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Age- and gender-specific interpolation of sarcopenia prevalence using Logistic equation
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Projected prevalence of sarcopenia in Europe from 2016 to 2045 according to the highest and the lowest definition variants (dotted boxes and lines represent the ±20% sensitivity analyses)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Proportion of men and women among prevalent cases of sarcopenia from 2016 to 2045 and according to the highest and the lowest definition variants
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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