Sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity in type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease: current perspective and narrative review

Abstract

Sarcopenia, initially described as a disease of the elderly and its coexistence with obesity, now termed as ‘sarcopenic obesity’ (SO), are now emerging to be important health problems worldwide. Their relatively recent recognition as distinct clinical entities with growing research has shown an increasing prevalence of both sarcopenia and SO. There is a strong independent association, which exists between sarcopenia/SO, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Studies investigating prevalence of sarcopenia/SO indicate considerable heterogeneity, likely due to the lack of a universally accepted definition, differences in age groups, gender, ethnicity, and socio-demographic factors of the population studied, apart from use of distinct diagnostic criteria and methods of estimation based on either muscle mass or strength.