Older Men With Sarcopenia Are More Likely to Develop Diabetes Over Time

A study in the Journal of the Endocrine Society found that older men with age-related sarcopenia are more likely to develop diabetes, while older women do not exhibit this pattern, reports EurekAlert . "Age-related muscle loss may be an under-recognized target for interventions to prevent the development of diabetes in older adults," said Johns Hopkins University's Rita R. Kalyani. "We found that relatively lower lean body mass with aging was related to a higher incidence of diabetes in men but not women, and partially related to body size." The researchers examined 871 men and 984 women, average age 60 years at the initial visit, and monitored up to 15 years. Dual x-ray absorptiometry revealed an association between age-related lower lean body mass and incident diabetes in men but not women. "Future studies that use more direct methods to assess skeletal muscle mass may give further insights into these relationships and the sex differences that we observed," Kaylani concluded.