SARCOPENIA OF AGING

Kostas Stiklioraitis, Simas Stiklioraitis, Liveta Sereikaitė, Monika Jasinskaitė, Žilvinas Krivickas, Ali Aldujeli

Background. Sarcopenia is an age-related condition, defined by the muscle decline, impaired physical function, and deterioration in muscle tissue quality. The main cause for the interest of Sarcopenia is the apparent association of this disease with patient morbidity, mortality, prolonged hospitalization, and deterioration in the quality of life. The purpose of this review is to present a brief account of some age-related biological changes that may contribute to Sarcopenia.

Materials and methods. We reviewed the literature based on data from Medline (PubMed), Google Scholar, Science Direct, and CAIRN. The research was done on articles in English or French, published before the 31st of December 2019. The research was based on the following Mesh headings (Medical Subject Headings): “sarcopenia” AND “aging” OR “muscle loss”.

Conclusions. A multitude of etiological factors influences the aging-associated deterioration of muscle mass and function that constitute Sarcopenia, such as imbalanced protein synthesis and degradation, decreasing anabolic hormones, inflammation, and age-related morphological changes, which are described in the review. In the future, research might be conducted for identifying specific biomarkers, which may lead to an opportunity to assess and monitor the disease non-invasively, granting possibilities for a more efficient therapeutic approach.