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A leaky gut contributes to reduced sarcopenia-related quality of life (SarQoL) in geriatric older adults

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Abstract

Purpose

The sarcopenia quality-of-life (SarQoL) questionnaire is designed to evaluate the quality of life of sarcopenic patients. A pathological increase in intestinal permeability leads to several systemic diseases, but its contribution to SarQoL is unknown.

Methods

We recruited controls (n = 84, age = 74.6 ± 4.9 years) and sarcopenic (n = 55, age = 76.1 ± 4.2 years) men for validating and adapting a Pashto version of SarQoL. We measured the scores for seven domains of SarQoL, body composition, and handgrip strength (HGS). We also measured plasma zonulin as a marker of increased intestinal permeability.

Results

The Pashto SarQoL exhibited adequate discriminative ability, construct validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability, without exhibiting the floor and ceiling effect. Sarcopenic patients had higher plasma zonulin and lower scores on SarQoL domains for physical and mental health, locomotion, body composition, functionality, activities of daily living, leisure, and fear, and cumulative SarQoL scores than controls. Plasma zonulin exhibited significant coefficients of determination with Pashto SarQoL domains for locomotion (r2 = 0.217), functionality (r2 = 0.101), activities of daily living (r2 = 0.302), and cumulative SarQoL scores (r2 = 0.168). We also found high efficacies of zonulin in diagnosing low scores for functionality (AUC = 0.785, 95% C.I = 0.708–0.863), activities of daily living (AUC = 0.785, 95% C.I = 0.708–0.863), and cumulative SarQoL scores (AUC = 0.821, 95% C.I = 0.751–0.891).

Conclusion

Altogether, SarQoL appears reliable in measuring the quality of life in sarcopenic patients. A leaky gut has a potential contribution to reduced SarQoL in sarcopenia.

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Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work is supported by a competitive grant (number: 22010901121) from the University of Sharjah to Rizwan Qaisar.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Basic Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

    Rizwan Qaisar, Asima Karim & Firdos Ahmad

  2. Space Medicine Research Group, Research Institute of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

    Rizwan Qaisar & Firdos Ahmad

  3. Cardiovascular Research Group, Research Institute of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

    Rizwan Qaisar & Firdos Ahmad

  4. Department of Neurology and Stroke Medicine, Rehman Medical Institute, Peshawar, 25124, Pakistan

    M. Shahid Iqbal

  5. Department of Biochemistry, Gomal Medical College, Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan

    Tahir Muhammad

Authors
  1. Rizwan Qaisar
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  2. M. Shahid Iqbal
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  3. Asima Karim
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  4. Tahir Muhammad
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  5. Firdos Ahmad
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Contributions

Conceptualization; RQ and AK, data curation; RQ, MI, AK, and FA, formal analysis; RQ and FA. Funding acquisition; RQ, investigation; RQ, MI, AK, TM, and FA, methodology; RQ, AK, and FA, project administration; AK, TM, and FA, resources; RQ, MI, TM, AK, and FA. Supervision; RQ, MA, AK, TM, and FA, validation; RQ and AK, writing—original draft; RQ, AK, TM, and FA, writing—review and editing, RQ, MI, AK, and FA.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rizwan Qaisar.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The study was conducted in accordance with the standards set by the Human Research Ethics Committee of Rehman Medical Institute, Peshawar, Pakistan.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individuals participants included in this study.

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Qaisar, R., Iqbal, M.S., Karim, A. et al. A leaky gut contributes to reduced sarcopenia-related quality of life (SarQoL) in geriatric older adults. Qual Life Res 33, 551–559 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-023-03547-2

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