Sarcopenia with metabolic syndrome links to cognitive decline

In a cohort of 5,985 Chinese adults aged 45 and older from 2011 to 2018, researchers tracked cognitive trajectories alongside sarcopenia and metabolic syndrome. The authors identified three cognitive patterns: persistently high, persistently low, and rapidly declining. In fully adjusted models, having both sarcopenia and metabolic syndrome was associated with a 2.64-fold increased odds of persistently low cognitive function and a 2.38-fold increased odds of a rapidly declining trajectory. Sarcopenia alone also increased the odds of adverse cognitive outcomes. In contrast, metabolic syndrome alone showed no significant association with cognitive trajectories after covariate adjustment. Causal forest analysis showed that age, body mass index, and hemoglobin level were the strongest effect modifiers.