Prevalence of sarcopenia in older Chinese adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

This meta-analysis was conducted to estimate the overall prevalence of sarcopenia in older Chinese adults.

Design

Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Participants

A literature research was conducted using the PubMed, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, CQVIP and Wanfang databases. The following search terms in the abstract were used: "sarcopenia" in combination with the terms "prevalence," "epidemiology" and "China." All studies published from January 2010 to November 2020 were included. The random-effect model was used to estimate the prevalence of sarcopenia. The sex-specific prevalence of sarcopenia at a 95% CI was also calculated using different criteria for defining sarcopenia.

Primary outcome measures

The overall prevalence of sarcopenia in older Chinese adults.

Results

In total, 23 articles were included in this meta-analysis involving 21 564 participants. On the basis of the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia criterion, the overall prevalence of sarcopenia among the elderly in China was 14% (95% CI 11% to 18%); the prevalence was higher in Chinese women than in men (15% vs 14%).

Conclusions

This systematic review is the first estimation of the pooled prevalence of sarcopenia in older Chinese adults. Our results suggest that China has a large number of patients with sarcopenia. These findings would be useful for sarcopenia prevention in China. There is a high degree of heterogeneity, and although there are a large number of cases and could be an emerging public health issue, more research is required to make these claims.

Prospero registration number

CRD42020223405.

SUBMITTER: Xin C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8378367 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature