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Review
. 2020 Sep 8;21(18):6549.
doi: 10.3390/ijms21186549.

Muscle Wasting and Sarcopenia in Heart Failure-The Current State of Science

Alessia Lena  1   2   3   4 , Markus S Anker  1   2   3   4 , Jochen Springer  3   4
Affiliations
Review

Muscle Wasting and Sarcopenia in Heart Failure-The Current State of Science

Alessia Lena et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Sarcopenia is primarily characterized by skeletal muscle disturbances such as loss of muscle mass, quality, strength, and physical performance. It is commonly seen in elderly patients with chronic diseases. The prevalence of sarcopenia in chronic heart failure (HF) patients amounts to up to 20% and may progress into cardiac cachexia. Muscle wasting is a strong predictor of frailty and reduced survival in HF patients. Despite many different techniques and clinical tests, there is still no broadly available gold standard for the diagnosis of sarcopenia. Resistance exercise and nutritional supplementation represent the currently most used strategies against wasting disorders. Ongoing research is investigating skeletal muscle mitochondrial dysfunction as a new possible target for pharmacological compounds. Novel agents such as synthetic ghrelin and selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) seem promising in counteracting muscle abnormalities but their effectiveness in HF patients has not been assessed yet. In the last decades, many advances have been accomplished but sarcopenia remains an underdiagnosed pathology and more efforts are needed to find an efficacious therapeutic plan. The purpose of this review is to illustrate the current knowledge in terms of pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment of sarcopenia in order to provide a better understanding of wasting disorders occurring in chronic heart failure.

Keywords: cardiac cachexia; heart failure; sarcopenia; treatment.

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Conflict of interest statement

M.S.A. has received personal fees from Servier and research support from the German Center for Cardiovascular Research and by the BMBF (German Ministry of Education and Research). All other authors report no conflict of interest.

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