Bridging assessment, biomarkers, and interventions: progress in muscle health research

The concept of 'muscle health' is increasingly recognized as a central determinant of physical function, metabolic regulation, and disease resilience, yet its clinical integration remains fragmented by inconsistent definitions and measurement approaches. This Perspective synthesizes insights from the Research Topic 'Advancing Muscle Health: From Technical and Clinical Research to Practice', which brings together nine contributions spanning assessment technologies, biomarkers, clinical populations, and interventions. Collectively, these works illustrate a field transitioning from isolated advances toward more integrated, clinically meaningful frameworks. Emerging ultrasound-based methods demonstrate how improved reliability and automation may enable scalable muscle assessment, while biomarker studies highlight both the promise and limitations of metabolomic, functional, and surrogate metrics in capturing the systemic nature of muscle health. Evidence from neurological, vascular, and oncological contexts reinforces that muscle is not only an outcome of disease, but a key modifier of disease progression and risk. Across these domains, exercise, particularly resistance-based and multimodal approaches, continues to emerge as a key, yet under-implemented, strategy. Despite this progress, critical gaps remain. The field lacks longitudinal, diverse-cohort data, standardized measurement frameworks, and robust integration of emerging technologies such as multi-omics and artificial intelligence. Moving forward, advancing muscle health will require interdisciplinary, translational approaches that align mechanistic insight with clinical application, enabling precise phenotyping and scalable interventions. Bridging these gaps is essential to move muscle health from a research construct to a core component of routine clinical care and public health strategy.