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Association of High Muscle Mass with Carotid Atherosclerosis: A Community-Based Population Cohort Study

  • Original Research
  • Published:
The journal of nutrition, health & aging

Abstract

Objectives

Although low muscle mass may make an underappreciated contribution to increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases, no prospective studies have explored the association between low muscle mass and carotid atherosclerosis. We investigated whether muscle mass was related to a higher carotid intima-media thickness (C-IMT) and carotid artery plaque in a community-based population.

Methods

The study included 1,253 asymptomatic participants without known cardiovascular disease, who underwent carotid ultrasonography at baseline in 2013–2014 and received a re-examination in 2015–2016. The skeletal muscle mass index was estimated using a bioelectrical impedance analyzer. We assessed the relationship between the skeletal muscle mass index and the development of C-IMT and carotid plaque, both, using multivariate-adjusted logistic regression models.

Results

During the follow up, 400 (51.0%) subjects with normal C-IMT at baseline developed elevated C-IMT and 215 (17.2%) subjects developed carotid plaque. The risk of elevated C-IMT occurrence linearly decreased with an increase in skeletal muscle mass index quintiles or its continuous data, after multivariate-adjustment in men and women, respectively (both P for trend < 0.05; both P < 0.05). Subgroup analyses showed that this association was BMI-dependent. Besides, there was an inverse association between a high skeletal muscle mass index and carotid artery plaque in women, but the association disappeared after multivariate adjustment. In men, the skeletal muscle mass index was not associated with the incidence of carotid plaque.

Conclusions

Skeletal muscle mass was inversely associated with the incidence of carotid atherosclerosis, suggesting muscle mass maintenance may play a role in modifying atherosclerosis.

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Funding

Funding Statement: This study was supported by the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission Medical Guide Project (19411964300) and Clinical Research Project of Health Industry of Shanghai Municipal Health Commission (20224Y0155).

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Author notes

  1. These two authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 600 Yishan Road, Shanghai, 200233, China

    Y. Xu, T. Hu, Y. Shen, Y. Wang, Xiaojing Ma & Yuqian Bao

  2. Shanghai Clinical Center for Diabetes, Shanghai, China

    Y. Xu, T. Hu, Y. Shen, Y. Wang, Xiaojing Ma & Yuqian Bao

  3. Shanghai Key Clinical Center for Metabolic Disease, Shanghai, China

    Y. Xu, T. Hu, Y. Shen, Y. Wang, Xiaojing Ma & Yuqian Bao

  4. Shanghai Diabetes Institute; Shanghai Key Laboratory of Diabetes Mellitus, Shanghai, 200233, China

    Y. Xu, T. Hu, Y. Shen, Y. Wang, Xiaojing Ma & Yuqian Bao

Authors
  1. Y. Xu
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  2. T. Hu
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  3. Y. Shen
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  4. Y. Wang
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  5. Xiaojing Ma
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Contributions

Author contributions: YQB and XJM conceived the study. YTX and TTH wrote the manuscript. YS and YFW contributed to data collection. YQB and XJM are the guarantors of this work and, as such, has full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. All authors gave final approval for the published version.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xiaojing Ma or Yuqian Bao.

Ethics declarations

Ethics declarations: The current study was carried out in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the institutional review board at the Ethics Committee of Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, approved number 2019-067.

Conflict of interest: All authors declare that there are no financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication.

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Xu, Y., Hu, T., Shen, Y. et al. Association of High Muscle Mass with Carotid Atherosclerosis: A Community-Based Population Cohort Study. J Nutr Health Aging 26, 1087–1093 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-022-1871-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-022-1871-z

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