Sexual Difference in Effect of Long Sleep Duration on Incident Sarcopenia after Two Years in Community-Dwelling Older...

Sarcopenia, a progressive and generalized skeletal muscle disorder involving an accelerated loss of muscle mass and muscle function, is a common condition in older individuals. This study aimed to determine whether sleep latency and duration were independently associated with incident sarcopenia and to explore sex differences in these associations.

This 2-year longitudinal analysis of cohort study data included community-dwelling participants of the 2016-2017 Korea Frailty and Aging Cohort Study aged 70-84 years at baseline survey who completed the 2-year follow-up survey. Logistic regression was used to calculate the odds ratios (ORs) for sarcopenia and sarcopenia components. Sarcopenia was defined using the 2019 Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia guidelines.

Among 1,353 non-sarcopenic participants in the baseline survey, 1,160 (85.8%) and 193 (14.2%) were classified as non-sarcopenic and sarcopenic, respectively, after 2 years. Long sleep duration (>8 hours per night) was associated with incident sarcopenia in male-OR=2.41 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.13-5.17) after adjusting for confounding factors. Long sleep duration was specifically associated with the development of low skeletal muscle mass and low muscle strength in male-adjusted OR=2.16 (95% CI, 1.02-4.61) and adjusted OR=2.70 (95% CI, 1.13-6.43), respectively. In female, compared to normal sleep duration, the adjusted ORs for long and short sleep duration for sarcopenia were 2.093 (95% CI, 0.753-5.812; p=0.157) and 0.852 (95% CI, 0.520-1.393; p=0.522), respectively, which were not significant.

In male, long sleep duration was associated with incident sarcopenia, specifically the development of low muscle mass and low muscle strength, but not with low physical performance.