Gender-Specific Risk Factors and Prevalence for Sarcopenia among Community-Dwelling Young-Old Adults

Sarcopenia in the elderly is a serious global public health problem. Numerous sarcopenia studies classified their subjects into a single group, but health conditions and body composition vary according to age. This study examined the prevalence of sarcopenia according to gender and assessed the gender-specific risk factors in young-old adults. In this study, 2697 participants in Korea aged from 65 to 74 years were analyzed from Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. The prevalence of sarcopenia in males and females was 19.2% (CI 95%: 16.4–22.3) and 26.4% (23.7–29.4), respectively. The risk factors in men were age, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), skeletal muscle index (SMI), fasting glucose (FG), triglyceride, and systolic blood pressure (SBP). Their odd ratios were 1.447, 0.102, 1.494, 0.211, 0.877, 1.012, and 1.347. The risk factors in women were age, height, weight, BMI, WC, SMI, and fasting glucose with values of 1.489, 0.096, 0.079, 0.158, 0.042, and 1.071, respectively. The prevalence of sarcopenia was higher in females than in males. Overall, the clinical risk factors in males were age, height, BMI, WC, SMI, FG, triglyceride, and SBP. Age, height, weight, BMI, WC, SMI, and FG were the risk factors for women.