Association of skeletal muscle mass, kidney disease and mortality in older men and women: the cardiovascular health study

Low muscle mass (sarcopenia) is a prevalent and major concern in the aging population as well as in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). We hypothesized that sarcopenia is an independent predictor of incident and progressive CKD and increased mortality in older men and women (≥65 years) from the Cardiovascular Health Study. Sarcopenia was defined by bioimpedance-estimated skeletal muscle mass index (SMI) as a continuous variable and categorically (normal, class I, and class II). Cox regression hazard ratios (HRs) estimated the risk of incident and prevalent CKD and mortality in individuals with and without CKD. Low SMI was associated with increased prevalence of CKD in men (p<0.001), but lower prevalence of CKD in women (p=0.03). Low muscle mass was not associated with incident CKD or rapid CKD progression (>3 ml/minute/1.73m2/year decline in eGFR) in men, but was associated with lower risk of incident CKD in women ([adjusted RR=0.69, 95% (0.51,0.94)]. Low muscle mass (class II) was independently associated with higher mortality only in men [(adjusted HR=1.26, 95% (1.05,1.50)]. Neither definition of sarcopenia was associated with mortality in men or women with CKD. Further studies are needed to understand the mechanisms by which sarcopenia contributes to higher mortality in aging men.