Association between sarcopenic obesity and cardiovascular risk: where are we?

Introduction: The main changes in the body composition refer to the increase of adipose tissue and/or the decrease of muscular mass, and these changes have effect in many clinical outcomes. Sarcopenic obesity (SO) consists of the presence of excessive adipose tissue and deficit of muscular mass simultaneously. People with SO may have synergistic effect due to obesity and sarcopenia, with increases cardiovascular risk more than obesity itself.

Objective: To describe the findings in the literature about the association between SO and risk factors and/or cardiometabolic disease (CMD) or cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Methods: An electronic search was done on the following databases: MEDLINE, Scopus, SciELO, LILACS and Web of Science, using the matching expressions and Boolean operators: "obesity sarcopenic" OR "sarcopenic obesity", in the titles of the studies, AND "cardiometabolic disease" OR "cardiovascular disease" OR "metabolic syndrome" OR "insulin resistance", in the abstract.

Results: Most of studies are cross-sectional and present many different diagnosis criteria for SO. It was possible to verify the association of the SO and the risk factors and/or CMD or CVD.

Conclusion: SO is associated with risk factors and/or CMD or CVD. The lack of a consensus about this definition jeopardizes the effective clinical practice and the research about the subject.