Association between sleep duration and sarcopenia among community-dwelling older adults A cross-sectional study

Both sleep disorders and sarcopenia are common among older adults. However, little is known about the relationship between these 2 conditions. This study aimed to investigate the possible association between sleep duration and sarcopenia in a population of Chinese community-dwelling older adults. Community-dwelling older adults aged 60 years or older were recruited. Self-reported sleep duration, anthropometric data, gait speed, and handgrip strength were collected by face-to-face interviews. Sarcopenia was defined according to the recommended algorithm of the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia (AWGS). We included 607 participants aged 70.6 +/- 6.6 years (range, 60-90 years) in the analyses. The prevalence of sarcopenia in the whole study population was 18.5%. In women, the prevalence of sarcopenia was significantly higher in the short sleep duration group (< 6hours) and long sleep duration group (> 8hours) compared with women in the normal sleep duration group (6-8hours; 27.5%, 22.2% and 13.9%, respectively; P=.014). Similar results were found in men; however, the differences between groups were not statistically significant (18.5%, 20.6%, and 13.0%, respectively; P=.356). After adjustments for the potential confounding factors, older women having short sleep duration (OR: 4.34; 95% CI: 1.74-10.85) or having long sleep duration (OR: 2.50; 95% CI: 1.05-6.99) had greater risk of sarcopenia compared with women having normal sleep duration. With comparison to men with normal sleep duration, the adjusted OR for sarcopenia was 2.12 (0.96-8.39) in the short sleep duration group and 2.25 (0.88-6.87) in the long sleep duration group, respectively. A U-shape relationship between self-reported sleep duration and sarcopenia was identified in a population of Chinese community-dwelling older adults, especially in women.