Association between depressive symptoms and sarcopenia in Chinese elderly: A cross-sectional analysis of Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey

Depression and sarcopenia, which had some common risk factors and shared some common pathological mechanisms, were one of the common comorbidities for elderly. Some studies had revealed the association between depressive symptom and sarcopenia, but studies on Chinese older adults still remained scarce and controversial. This article revealed the association between depressive symptoms and sarcopenia in Chinese elderly. This cross-sectional study analyzed data from the 2018 wave of Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey. The basic characteristics of participants between the sarcopenia and the non-sarcopenia group were compared by χ2 test. The association between depressive symptoms and sarcopenia was investigated using multivariate logistic regression. Subsequently, exploratory subgroup analysis was conducted to assess whether the association was consistent across groups stratified by pre-defined factors. Among the 9123 older participants, the prevalence of depressive symptoms and sarcopenia were 63.42% and 32.66%, respectively. The proportion of depressive symptoms was 73.72% in the sarcopenia group, significantly higher than the 58.42% in non-sarcopenia group (χ2 = 202.496, P < .001). The prevalence of sarcopenia among elderly in different quartiles of depressive scores showed a linear increasing trend (Z = 18.187, P < .001). Multivariate logistic regression model was adopted to explore the association between depressive symptoms and sarcopenia. And subsequently subgroup analysis was conducted among subgroups stratified by prefined factors. Elderly participants with depressive symptoms were significantly associated with a higher prevalence of sarcopenia (odds ratio = 1.683, 95% confidence interval: 1.502-1.886, P < .001) after adjusting for potential confounders. Subsequently, results of the exploratory subgroup analysis suggest that living arrangements might modify the strength of association between depression and sarcopenia (P for interaction = .008). Our findings suggest an association between depressive symptoms and sarcopenia among the Chinese elderly, especially for elderly living alone or in an institute. This association warrants further investigation through longitudinal research to explore whether addressing depressive symptoms could be a potential strategy for sarcopenia prevention.