JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Individuals with sarcopenia have shown excess mortality, yet no specific treatment regimen has been established.

Objective:

We aim to estimate the impact of a healthy lifestyle to mortality in the sarcopenia population.

Methods:

Participants were selected from the UK Biobank, aged 40-69 years during 2006-2010. Sarcopenia was identified according to EWGSOP2 criteria, resulting in 20,654 participants included in this study. Death dates and underlying causes were obtained from the National Health Service Information Centre. Cox proportional hazards models and population-attributable risk were used to assess the associations between healthy lifestyle factors and mortality risk.

Results:

During a median follow-up of 11.5 years, 2,447 participants died. All healthy lifestyle factors, including non-smoking, moderate alcohol intake, regular physical activity, a healthy diet, limited television-watching time, adequate sleep duration, and strong social connections, were independently associated with lower mortality risk. Compared with individuals with 0-2 healthy lifestyle factors, hazard ratios and their 95% confidence interval (CI) of all-cause mortality for those with 3 to 6-7 factors were 0.67 (0.59-0.76), 0.51 (0.45-0.57), 0.43 (0.38-0.49) and 0.33 (0.29-0.39), respectively (P for trend <0.001). There was also a dose-response relationship between the number of healthy lifestyle factors and mortality from cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, digestive disease, and other causes (all p for trend<0.001). Population-attributable risk analysis indicated that 25.7% (22.0%-29.0%) of deaths were attributable to a poor lifestyle (scoring 0-5).

Conclusions:

A healthy lifestyle is associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality and mortality due to cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and digestive disease among individuals with sarcopenia. Adopting a healthy lifestyle (scoring 6-7) could prevent 25.7% of deaths in this population.