Sarcopenia Metrics and Quality of Life Components: What Is the Link?

Sarcopenia is known to be negatively associated with quality of life in affected patients. However, the individual impacts of its metrics, i.e. muscle mass, strength, and physical performance, on patients’ overall quality of life remain to be thoroughly investigated.

This pre-printed study aimed to characterise the associations between sarcopenia metrics and quality of life outcomes in community-dwelling older adults from the SOMMA (Study of Muscle, Mobility and Aging) study. Health-related quality of life was ascertained using the EQ-5D questionnaire, which measures 5 subcomponents: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain and discomfort, as well as anxiety and depression.

Key learnings:

In general, greater levels of sarcopenia metrics were associated with better self-reported quality of life in all patients. Of all EQ-5D components, sarcopenia metrics demonstrated particularly robust associations with pain and usual activities. Self-reported mobility was also strongly associated with most sarcopenia metrics, excluding muscle mass in women as well as leg and grip strength in men. Interestingly, despite its routine inclusion in sarcopenia definitions, the latter metric showed no association with most Q-5D subcomponents in men. These findings warrant further exploration longitudinally and in more ethnically diverse cohorts.

Reviewed by: S. Duarte

Authors: Petnehazy N, Barnes HN, Newman AB et al.

Published in: medRxiv (October 2023)