Prevalência de sarcopenia em idosos não-institucionalizados de uma cidade brasileira de médio porte

Abstract

This study was an attempt to estimate the prevalence of the sarcopenic syndrome and its clinical subgroups in a community-dwelling population aged 60 years or more resident in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul. This study was nested within a research consortium entitled COMO VAI?, which includes the projects of 18 master students of the Post-Graduate Program in Epidemiology of the Federal University of Pelotas. Survey data from a random sample of elderly people were collected, ensuring the representativeness of the study population. Concurrently, a substudy from the author himself was performed, focused on the analysis of body composition in a deterministic sample of the elderly. Cutoff points for the establishment of loss of lean body mass through the calf circumference of the elderly were determined through the substudy. The appendicular lean mass index obtained through double X-ray absorptiometry of the substudy population was compared with the same index from the young adult population from the same locality, obtained through a birth cohort study previously conducted by the same research center. Using the criteria established by the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (analysis of muscle mass, strength and performance), the 1291 eligible elderly from the COMO VAI? study were categorized into normal, pre-sarcopenic, sarcopenic, or severely sarcopenic. Further, frequency analysis related to outcome variables was performed. The main results were: the prevalence of sarcopenia (sarcopenic and severely sarcopenic) in the elderly population of Pelotas is approximately 13.9%; cutoff calf circumference points of 34cm for men and 33cm for women, in order to establish muscle mass loss; the identification of increasing age as a worsening factor for sarcopenia, and a higher incidence of the syndrome in the elderly with little or no formal education, lower socioeconomic status, without companion, smokers and physically inactive; and the finding that approximately one in ten aged 60 to 69 years are in the pre-clinical stage of the syndrome, which points out the age at which public health policies should direct their efforts to prevent the progression of the syndrome to its clinical stages. Hopefully, this study will be able to contribute to the global map of the sarcopenia prevalence, filling an important gap in data from South America. This volume includes: the original research project; field reports of the main study and the substudy; methodological changes related to the original project, from the elaboration phase to its implementation; an original article, to be submitted to the Journal of cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle; a press release; a manual for this specific kind of data collection, adapted by the author; and the publishing guidelines for the aforementioned journal.