Sarcopenia is a progressive decline in muscle mass and strength with aging. Few studies have investigated that lower muscle mass or strength were associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). We evaluated whether skeletal muscle mass and grip strength were associated with CVD in type 2 diabetic patients. A total of 1,038 subjects with type 2 diabetes were recruited. We measured appendicular skeletal muscle mass (ASM) using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry and used ASM/BMI for muscle mass quantity. Grip strength (GS) was assessed using a JAMA dynamometer. Patients were divided into sex-specific three groups of ASM/BMI and GS. CVD included coronary heart disease (CHD), cerebral infarction (CI), and peripheral artery disease (PAD) diagnosed by ICD-10. Patients with CVD, CHD, CI, and PAD were 232 (22.4%), 151 (14.5%), 68 (6.6%), and 38 (3.7%), respectively. Subjects with lowest tertile of ASM/BMI were more likely to be elderly and hypertensive, had higher values of systolic BP (SBP), waist circumference (WC), BMI, diabetes duration (DD), C-reactive protein (CRP), serum creatinine (Cr), urine albumin excretion (UAE), and HbA1c, and had lower values of diastolic BP (DBP) and HDL compared with those with highest. Whereas, participants with lowest tertile of GS had higher values of age, DD, Cr, and UAE and had lower values of BMI, DBP, HDL, and LDL than those with highest. The prevalence of CVD, CHD, CI, and PAD with decreasing tertile of ASM/BMI and GS increased proportionally (p<0.001). Odd ratios (ORs) for presence of CVD after adjusted for age with decreasing tretile of ASM/BMI and GS were significantly increased: OR (95% CI) = 1.93 (1.23-3.03) and 2.01 (1.28-3.16) in middle vs. 3.35 (2.16-5.20) and 2.87 (1.80-4.57) in lowest. ORs were maintained significantly after further adjusted for hypertension, current smoking, DD, WC, BMI, BP, HDL, CRP, Cr, HbA1c, and UAE. We found that lower muscle mass and strength were independently associated with CVD in patients with type 2 diabetes.
J. Shin: None.
