Abstract
Background: Sarcopenia is defined as the age-related progressive loss of skeletal muscle mass, strength, and function. Although many different interventions have been suggested for the management of sarcopenia, the effectiveness of such treatments is still uncertain. The objective of this review is to systematically assess the different intervention strategies currently reported and to evaluate their effects on muscle mass, muscle strength, and physical function outcomes in sarcopenic participants.
Methods: Web of Science, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Scopus were systematically searched for exercise, nutritional, pharmacological, and other randomised controlled trial interventions in participants diagnosed with sarcopenia and ≥50 years of age. Eligibility was assessed through reviewing titles and abstracts, and if a study was found to be eligible the full texts were read for confirmation. Risk of bias was performed on included studies and subsequently data including study, participant, and intervention characteristics, were extracted. Using this data, the studies were subgrouped according to intervention type and outcomes reported, and meta-analysis was performed on exercise interventions.
Results: Database searching retrieved 2558 records. 21 full-texts were assessed for eligibility, of which 7 were included in the meta-analysis. Meta-analysis revealed that exercise interventions significantly improved appendicular skeletal muscle mass (0.5kg, 0.09-0.91CI, P=0.02), timed up and go (-1.67s, -2.43--0.91CI, P<.0001), grip strength (2.04kg, 0.39-3.70ci, p="0.02)," and knee extension (12.35nm, 8.47-16.23ci, p<00001).
Conclusion: Exercise interventions significantly improved many body composition functional outcomes in sarcopenic participants, these results are line with other reviews, however further research is required to consolidate findings due the small number of studies heterogeneous methods.