Fig 1.
Heterogeneity of muscle mass and motor function in binary and composite sarcopenia metrics.
Published binary sarcopenia (Sarcopenia Y/N) is based on sex-specific thresholds, so males and females are presented in separate panels. Each panel shows five variables with density estimates for the persons meeting (bluegreen) and not meeting (orange) criteria for binary sarcopenia juxtaposed to form figures that are referred to as violin plots. Each variable was scaled to range from 0 to 1; low scaled values in this figure represent greater sarcopenia. Continuous sarcopenia based on percentage (Continuous Sarcopenia, Sarc%) is on the far left and the composite sarcopenia average score (Composite Sarcopenia, Sarc_z) immediately to its right. These composite measures are followed by the two variables used to construct composite sarcopenia (skeletal muscle mass index (SMI) and grip strength). Gait speed, which is an alternative measure of motor function sometimes employed in constructions sarcopenia, is shown on the right. Review of the two panels in this figure confirms that sarcopenic persons had both weak grip and low SMI, with sharp limits for the bluegreen densities to the right of the vertical axes. It is evident that many persons with low SMI are not sarcopenic, because the red density (to the left of the vertical axes) overlaps the bluegreen density: these persons a fortiori do not have weak grip. Fig 1 also shows that the distribution of gait speed is similar for those with and without sarcopenia.
Table 1.
Clinical characteristics of analytic cohort at baseline.
Table 2.
Correlations and principal component analysis (PCA) of measures used to construct sarcopenia and physical frailty metrics.
Table 3.
Continuous sarcopenia and incident adverse health outcomes.
Table 4.
Associations of measures used to construct sarcopenia and physical frailty in relation to adverse health outcomes.