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Research Paper|Volume 13, Issue 6|pp 8599—8610

Nutrition status mediates the association between cognitive decline and sarcopenia

Xiaolei Liu1,2, Xin Xia1,2, Fengjuan Hu1,2, Lisha Hou1,2, Shuli Jia1,2, Yixin Liu1,2, Linghui Deng1,2, Yan Zhang1,2, Wanyu Zhao1,2, Gongchang Zhang1,2, Jirong Yue1,2, Birong Dong1,2
  • 1National Clinical Research Center for Geriatrics, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
  • 2Geriatric Health Care and Medical Research Center, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
Received: November 13, 2020Accepted: February 3, 2021Published: March 10, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202672

Copyright: © 2021 Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

In this study, we investigated whether nutrition status mediates the relationship between cognitive decline and sarcopenia. Sarcopenia was assessed in 4023 community-dwelling older adults from West China using the AWGS 2014 diagnostic criteria. Cognitive function and nutrition status were assessed using the 10-item Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ) and Mini Nutrition Assessment-Short Form (MNA-SF) scale, respectively. Mediation model regression analysis demonstrated that nutrition status was negatively associated with sarcopenia (β = -0.521; 95% CI: -0.583 to -0.459). The indirect effects of cognitive decline on sarcopenia were significant after adjusting for age, sex, and ethnicity (β = 0.015; 95% CI: 0.012 to 0.017), but the direct effects of cognitive decline on sarcopenia were not statistically significant after adding nutrition status as a parameter in the mediation model analysis (β = -0.001; 95% CI: -0.008 to 0.005). Structural equation model (SEM) framework pathway analysis confirmed the association between nutrition status, cognitive decline, and sarcopenia. These findings demonstrate that the negative effects of cognitive decline on sarcopenia were mediated by nutrition status. We therefore postulate that maintaining a good nutrition status delays the negative effects of cognitive decline on sarcopenia in older adults.