Correlates of Skeletal Muscle Mass and Differences Between Novel Subtypes in Recent-Onset Diabetes

Low skeletal muscle mass (SMM) is associated with long-standing diabetes but little is known about SMM in newly diagnosed diabetes.

We aimed to identify correlates of SMM in recent-onset diabetes and to compare SMM between novel diabetes subtypes.

SMM was normalized to body mass index (SMM/BMI) in 842 participants with known diabetes duration of less than 1 year from the German Diabetes Study (GDS). Cross-sectional associations between clinical variables, 79 biomarkers of inflammation, and SMM/BMI were assessed, and differences in SMM/BMI between novel diabetes subtypes were analyzed with different degrees of adjustment for confounders.

Male sex and physical activity were positively associated with SMM/BMI, whereas associations of age, BMI, glycated hemoglobin A1c, homeostatic model assessment for β-cell function, and estimated glomerular filtration rate with SMM/BMI were inverse (all P < .05; model r2 = 0.82). Twenty-three biomarkers of inflammation showed correlations with SMM/BMI after adjustment for sex and multiple testing (all P < .0006), but BMI largely explained these correlations. In a sex-adjusted analysis, individuals with severe autoimmune diabetes had a higher SMM/BMI whereas individuals with severe insulin-resistant diabetes and mild obesity-related diabetes had a lower SMM/BMI than all other subtypes combined. However, differences were attenuated after adjustment for the clustering variables.

SMM/BMI differs between diabetes subtypes and may contribute to subtype differences in disease progression. Of note, clinical variables rather than biomarkers of inflammation explain most of the variation in SMM/BMI.