Considerations concerning the definition of sarcopenia: response to comments

Excerpt

We thank Scott et al. for their important feedback and agreement that the definition of sarcopenia based on ALM/h² provides an acceptable prevalence of sarcopenia and relates well to important consequences such as falls and fractures and mortality [1, 2]. Regarding the argument for a definition that includes a measure of body mass/fat mass, we agree that this may be important. However, in our validation study [3], the 2009 sarcopenia definition by Delmonico et al. [4] which used Health ABC as the reference population and regressed ALM by height and total body fat mass resulted in a high prevalence of sarcopenia of 27 %. Additionally, by this definition, sarcopenic women had a significantly lower rate of falls (RR = 0.59; 95 % CI 0.38–0.92), while sarcopenic men had a significantly increased rate of falls (RR = 1.83; 95 % CI 1.13–2.96) [3]. Although additional validation studies are needed, at this time, the high prevalence and discrepant gender associations argue against a definition that includes body mass/fat mass. …