Geriatrics & Gerontology International · Mar 2026
Joint Assessment of Sarcopenia and Lipid Parameters on Cardiovascular Diseases in Middle-Aged and Older Adults in China With Different Glucose Metabolism Status
By Luo W, Xu Y, Tao Z et al.
BACKGROUND: Sarcopenia and dyslipidemia are established as independent risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD). AIMS: The study aims to investigate the joint effect of sarcopenia and lipid parameters on the risk of self-reported cardiovascular disease in individuals with different stages of glucose metabolism. METHODS: This study included 9053 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2015 participants aged ≥ 45 years without baseline CVD. Using multivariable logistic regression, it assessed sarcopenia-lipid-CVD event links, stratified by glucose metabolism. Risk reclassification used combined sarcopenia-lipid status. Restricted cubic splines detected non-linear lipid-CVD relationships. Receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) evaluated lipid metric accuracy. RESULTS: A total of 1074 participants (11.9%) reported new-onset CVD. Joint exposure analysis identified synergistic effects: sarcopenia combined with elevated lipid parameters (except HDL-C) conferred the highest CVD risk, particularly in normoglycemic (NGR) and prediabetic (Pre-DM) subgroups (p < 0.001), but not in Type 2 diabetics (p > 0.05). ROC analysis revealed modest discriminative ability of non-traditional indices compared with conventional parameters across glycometabolic strata. Atherogenic Coefficient demonstrated relatively consistent, yet limited, predictive capability across glycometabolic states and may warrant consideration as a potential lipid biomarker for CVD risk assessment. CONCLUSIONS: The findings highlight the coexposure effects between sarcopenia and lipid parameters on cardiovascular diseases, especially for individuals with normal glucose regulation and prediabetes.