Sarcopenic Obesity in Adults With Spinal Cord Injury: A Cross-Sectional Study

To describe (1) the frequency and utility of clinically relevant spinal cord injury (SCI)-specific and general population thresholds for obesity and sarcopenic obesity; and (2) the fat and lean soft tissue distributions based on the neurologic level of injury and the American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale.

Cross-sectional.

Tertiary SCI rehabilitation hospital.

Persons (N=136; men, n=100; women, n=36) with chronic (mean ± SD: 15.6±11.3y postinjury) tetraplegia (n=66) or paraplegia (n=70).

Not applicable.

Body composition was assessed with anthropometrics and whole-body dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. Muscle atrophy was quantified using a sarcopenia threshold of appendicular lean mass index (ALMI) (men, ≤7.26kg/m²; women, ≤5.5kg/m²). Obesity was defined by percentage body fat (men, ≥25%; women, ≥35%), visceral adipose tissue (≥130cm²), and SCI-specific obesity thresholds (body mass index [BMI] ≥22kg/m²; waist circumference ≥94cm). Sarcopenic obesity was defined as the presence of both sarcopenia and obesity. Groups were compared based on impairment characteristics using an analysis of covariance.

Sarcopenic obesity was prevalent in 41.9% of the sample. ALMI was lower among participants with motor-complete (6.2±1.3kg/m²) versus motor-incomplete (7.5±1.6kg/m²) injuries (P<.01). Whole-body fat was greater among participants with tetraplegia (28.8±11.2kg) versus paraplegia (24.1±8.7kg; P<.05). Compared with general population guidelines (20.6%), SCI-specific BMI thresholds identified all the participants with obesity (77.9%) based on percentage body fat (72.1%).

The observed frequency of sarcopenic obesity in this sample of individuals with chronic SCI is very high, and identification of obesity is dissimilar when using SCI-specific versus general population criteria.