Research

Hormonal

Low skeletal muscle mass (sarcopenia) is significantly associated with higher insulin resistance, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome in non-obese individuals, particularly those aged 60 and older.

If you are not overweight but are over 60, losing muscle mass puts you at a significantly higher risk for diabetes and metabolic syndrome than if you were overweight. Prioritize resistance training and adequate protein intake to preserve muscle mass, as it acts as a primary site for glucose disposal and metabolic regulation, independent of your body fat levels.

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Sarcopenia showed a significant association with insulin resistance in the non-obese group, but not in the obese group. Sarcopenia was also found to be a risk factor for MS in the non-obese group, but not in the obese-group. In addition, only in the non-obese group, diabetes was more prevalent among sarcopenic subjects than among those without sarcopenia.
Seong‐Su Moon · Endocrine Journal · 2013

Why this rating

Large cross-sectional observational study (n=10,432) with rigorous adjustment for confounders, though causality is limited by the cross-sectional design.

Source

Low skeletal muscle mass is associated with insulin resistance, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome in the Korean population: The Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) 2009-2010

Seong‐Su Moon · Endocrine Journal · 2013

DOI 10.1507/endocrj.ej13-0244

cross_sectional · n=10432Cited 271×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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