Association between Reproductive Span and Sarcopenia

Sarcopenia is defined as an age-related loss of skeletal muscle and is associated with several health disorders. Causes of sarcopenia, which included physical inactivity, alcohol, dietary habits, and smoking, have been researched. The present study was undertaken to examine the association between reproductive span and sarcopenia in Korean women. Data obtained from 2008 to 2011 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (KNHANES) were analyzed. We defined sarcopenia based on the cut-off values of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) sarcopenia project criteria: ASM/BMI < 0.512 for women. Reproductive span was defined as years from menarche to menopause, and we divided the 3970 study subjects into three groups by reproductive span tertile. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine adjusted ORs for the relation between reproductive span and sarcopenia. The prevalence of sarcopenia in the study was 17.7% (704 of 3970). Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed using weighted populations. After adjusting for covariates, reproductive span was found to be inversely associated with the risk of sarcopenia [Tertile 1 = 1 (reference); Tertile 2, odds ratio (OR) = 0.927, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.863–0.995; Tertile 3, OR = 0.854, 95% CI = 0.793–0.915].