Sarcopenia is associated with Framingham risk score in the Korean population: Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) 2010-2011.

Background: Sarcopenia is a risk factor for metabolic disorders and cardiovascular disease, but the association between sarcopenia and cardiovascular risk factors according to age and obesity status in the general population remains unknown. We thus investigated these associations in the Korean population.

Methods: We included 8,958 and 8,518 subjects from the fifth Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) (from 2010 and 2011, respectively). The study was restricted to participants ≥ 20 years old who had completed the health examination survey, including whole body dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scans. After exclusion, 7,366 subjects (3,188 men, 4,178 women) were included in our final analysis. Age was categorized according to three age groups (20-39, 40-59, and ≥ 60 years), and subjects were categorized according to their sarcopenic and obesity status. Cardiovascular risk was assessed with Framingham risk score (FRS).

Results: The sarcopenic obese group had a higher FRS than the non-sarcopenic obese group, which had a higher FRS than the non-sarcopenic non-obese group. Age-wise, the 20-39 year-old group showed a non-significant association between sarcopenia and FRS. In the 40-59 year-old group, regardless of obesity status, sarcopenic subjects had a higher FRS than non-sarcopenic subjects. In the ≥ 60 year-old group, sarcopenic subjects had a higher FRS than non-sarcopenic subjects for the non-obese group.

Conclusions: Sarcopenia was associated with cardiovascular disease and may be an early predictor of its susceptibility in both elderly and middle-aged subjects. Thus, management of sarcopenia is necessary to prevent cardiovascular disease.