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. 2025 Jun 27:20:903-909.
doi: 10.2147/CIA.S518738. eCollection 2025.

Association Between Frailty and Albuminuria in the Community-Dwelling Geriatric Population

Chih-Hsueh Lin  1   2   3 , Che-Yi Chou  4   5   6 , Tsai-Chung Li  7 , Chiu-Shong Liu  1   2 , Wen-Yuan Lin  1   2 , Chia-Ing Li  8 , Chuan-Wei Yang  8 , Cheng-Chieh Lin  1   2   9
Affiliations

Association Between Frailty and Albuminuria in the Community-Dwelling Geriatric Population

Chih-Hsueh Lin et al. Clin Interv Aging. .

Abstract

Aim: Elderly with frailty are more at risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality than the general population. Albuminuria is a risk factor for atherosclerosis, a major cause of frailty. We investigated the association between frailty and albuminuria in community-dwelling elderly.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study for analyzing 1347 participants aged at least 65 years in the north district of Taichung, Taiwan. We defined the frailty phenotype as at least three characteristics: weight loss, exhaustion, weakness, slow walking speed, and decreased physical activity. We collected random urine and measured all participants' albumin/creatinine ratio (ACR). We analyzed the association between frailty and ACR using logistic regression with adjustments for confoundings.

Results: The average age of 1347 participants was 76 ± 7 years, and 649 (48.2%) were male. Two hundred and forty-two (18.7) participants were robust, 853 (63.3%) participants were pre-frail, and 242 (18%) were frail. One thousand sixty-four (79%) participants had an ACR < 30 mg/g; the highest ACR was 2825 mg/g. The odds ratio of ACR was 1.12 (95% confidence interval 1.05-1.25, p = 0.001) with adjustments for age, body mass index, estimated glomerular filtration rate, diabetes, liver function, and cholesterol.

Conclusion: Frailty is associated with urinary albuminuria in community-dwelling elderly, and this association is independent of traditional and non-traditional cardiovascular risk factors.

Keywords: albumin; albuminuria; community; elderly; frailty.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Adjusted odds ratio and 95% confidence interval of frail according to urinary albumin creatinine ratio with log transformation. The black line indicates the adjusted odds ratio (OR) of frail according to the urinary albumin creatine ratio (ACR). Adjusted factors were age, gender, body mass index, diabetes, alanine transaminase, and cholesterol. The light-gray area indicates the 95% confidence interval of OR. The X-axis is the ACR with log transformation. The left Y-axis represents the adjusted OR. The right Y-axis is the number of participants. The black bar is the number of participants according to the ACR.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Forest plot of odds ratio and 95% confidence interval of frail. Squares represent the odds ratio (OR) point estimate, and horizontal lines indicate the 95% confidence intervals (CI). The vertical dashed line indicates an OR of 1.0, representing no association.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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