The Association between Sarcopenia and Prealbumin Levels among Elderly Chinese Inpatients

The goal of the present study was to assess the relationship between sarcopenia and prealbumin levels among hospitalized patients ages 60 and older.

Cross-sectional study.

The geriatric wards in Guizhou Provincial People's Hospital, Guiyang. Guizhou, China.

Sarcopenia was defined according to the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia (AWGS) criteria, which consist of three components: low muscle mass, assessed based on an index of appendicular skeletal mass/height2 <7.0kg/m2 for men and <5.4kg/m2 for women; low muscle strength, defined as handgrip strength <26kg for men and <18kg for women; and low physical performance, defined as gait speed <0.8m/s. Using these criteria, sarcopenia was defined as presence of low muscle mass in addition to low muscle strength and/or low physical performance. Prealbumin levels and other variables were considered as being independent variables in an effort to evaluate any potential associations between these factors and sarcopenia status using non-adjusted and multivariate-adjusted regression models.

The overall prevalence of sarcopenia was 60.17%, affecting 65 (70.65%) men and 6 (23.08%) women in the present study. Age, body mass index (BMI), and prealbumin levels were each independently associated with sarcopenia (p<0.05). In a multivariate model, after adjusting for all potential covariates, prealbumin levels remained significantly associated with sarcopenia incidence, with an inflection point of 265.9mg/L. The effect sizes and the confidence intervals on the left and right sides of this inflection point were 0.94 (0.90 to 0.99) and 1.07 (0.93 to 1.23), respectively.

Among older Chinese inpatients in the present study, prealbumin levels were negatively correlated with sarcopenia incidence, when prealbumin levels were below 265.9mg/L.