Association between physical, cognitive, and social activities with the incident of sarcopenia among community-dwelling older adults: a 4-year longitudinal study

The purpose of the present study was to comprehensively examine the association between inadequate physical activity (PA), cognitive activity (CA), and social activity (SA) and the development of sarcopenia.

We conducted a two-wave survey. In the first-wave survey, we asked participants five questions for each of the three categories—PA, CA, and SA. The low-activity group was defined as those who fell into the decline category for one or more of the five questions. In both Wave 1 and Wave 2, we assessed the sarcopenia status of our participants. The revised definition of the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People 2 was used to determine sarcopenia, and the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia criteria were used for cut-off points for muscle mass, grip strength, and walking speed.

In the second wave, we were able to follow 2,530 participants (mean age 75.0 ± 4.7 years, 47.8% men). A multivariable logistic regression showed that low-PA participants face a higher risk of incident sarcopenia, both before and after multiple imputations (odds ratio [OR] 1.62, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.22–2.15 before imputation; OR 1.62, 95% CI 1.21–2.18 after imputation); the low-SA group also showed a higher risk of incident sarcopenia both before and after multiple imputations (OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.05–1.64 before imputation; OR 1.33, 95% CI 1.07–1.65 after imputation).

Each low PA and SA independently led to incident sarcopenia late in life. Encouraging not only PA, but also SA, may be effective to prevent sarcopenia among older adults.