Introduction
Sarcopenia, which is characterized by loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength, is a geriatric syndrome and has been reported to be related to increased risk of many adverse outcomes, including physical disability, poor quality of life and even death [
1,
2]. And it is of great value to investigate the potential linkage between sarcopenia and aging-related diseases, which will contribute to the early diagnosis and timely interventions.
Stroke is now becoming a leading cause of mortality and disability, especially in low- and middle-income countries [
3]. It has have revealed that prestroke sarcopenia can affect stroke severity in elderly patients [
4]. In addition, prestroke sarcopenia was an independent predictor for poorer functional outcome at 3 months after acute stroke [
5].
As for another aging-related disease, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent neurodegenerative disease and the major cause of dementia. The close relationship between sarcopenia and cognitive impairment has been observed [
6,
7]. And the prevalence of cognitive impairment was 40% in patients with sarcopenia [
6].
However, the causal effects of sarcopenia on stroke and AD still remain unclear, as it will be very challenging based on the inherent risk of bias due to confounding or reverse causality in the observational studies. Appendicular lean mass (ALM) is the sum of lean mass for both arms and legs and can be regarded as a major index to define sarcopenia [
8]. Recently, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified ALM-associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) [
9], which provided an opportunity to explore the causal associations of ALM with the risk of stroke and AD by performing Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses.
MR is a powerful approach for evaluating the causal links between clinical exposures and outcomes [
10]. Genetic variants associated with the exposures are employed as instrumental variables (IVs) [
10]. Since alleles are randomly assigned to the offspring and can remain constant after conception, the MR approach can avoid some limitations of conventional observational studies and reduce the influence of unmeasured confounding and reverse causality. Hence, in the present study, we aimed to use the two-sample MR analysis to elucidate the causal relationships between genetically predicted ALM and the risk of stroke subtypes (including large artery stroke [LAS], small vessel stroke [SVS], and cardioembolic stroke [CES]) as well as AD.
Discussion
In the present study, we conducted a two-sample MR study to investigate whether genetically predicted ALM was causally associated with the risk of stroke and AD. Our findings showed the significant negative relationship between genetically predicted ALM and the risk of AIS, LAS, SVS, and AD. Multivariable MR analysis suggested that ALM retained the stable effect on AIS when adjusting for BMI, LDL-C, and AF, while a suggestive association was observed after adjusting for T2DM. And the estimated effect of ALM on LAS was significant after adjustment for BMI and AF, while a suggestive association was found after adjusting for T2DM and LDL-C. Besides, the estimated effects of ALM were still significant on SVS and AD after adjustment for BMI, T2DM, LDL-C, and AF.
ALM is mainly determined by skeletal muscle and has a good predictive power for sarcopenia, which is mainly due to the progressive loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength [
2,
9]. In addition, ALM is highly heritable and can be a suitable trait for sarcopenia-related genetic analyses [
25].
Ischemic stroke is one of the leading causes of mortality and long-term disability worldwide. It has been reported that sarcopenia was related to elevated prevalence of stroke in South korean men aged ≥ 50 years [
26]. Besides, increased skeletal muscle mass may contribute to protect against silent infarction [
27]. However, the relationship between genetically predicted ALM and stroke has not been explored yet. In this MR study, we found significant negative associations between ALM and the risk of AIS, LAS, and SVS. It may be attributed to chronic low-grade inflammation, which can promote the loss of muscle mass, strength, and function on account of the influences on both muscle protein breakdown and synthesis [
28]. What’s more, inflammation can mediate aberrant platelet aggregation, which can stick to the surface of endothelial cells and induce local ischemia and hypoxia, even resulting in tissue death. Thus, individuals with signs of inflammation or corresponding biomarkers are considered to have an elevated risk of stroke [
29]. In addition, it has been reported that there is an inverse association between peripheral lean mass and endothelial dysfunction, suggesting that low ALM may play an important role in the decline of endothelial function [
30]. As we know, endothelial cells play an important role in maintaining vascular homeostasis. And vascular endothelial dysfunction is critically related to the development of cardiovascular diseases, including stroke. Therefore, chronic inflammation and vascular endothelial dysfunction are possible factors associating ALM and stroke.
And our present MR study showed a significant causal association between genetically predicted ALM and the risk of AD. As we know, it has been reported that there was an inverse relationship between lean mass and AD incidence [
31,
32]. And this relationship may be explained by several mechanisms. Chronic inflammation and oxidative stress have been proven to mediate low lean mass and AD in the elderly [
33]. Besides, low muscle mass but not muscle strength, has been found to be independently related to parietal gray matter volume atrophy in middle-aged adults [
34]. And the parietal lobe is involved in the early stage of AD [
35], suggesting that parietal lobe involvement might lead to cognitive impairment in individuals with low muscle mass. Finally, serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) had a positive correlation with muscle mass [
36]. And the decreased level of BDNF can lead to cognitive deterioration, while greater levels of BDNF by exercise training can increase hippocampal volume and improve cognitive function [
37].
Therefore, this study provided reliable causal evidence for the protective effects of ALM on the risk of stroke and AD. Recently, a randomized controlled trial has explored a plausible multicomponent intervention based on physical activity with technological support and nutritional counselling for sarcopenia [
38]. Our findings inform the development of physical interventions targeting low ALM to reduce the risk of stroke and AD.
There are several strengths in this study. One strength of this study is the MR design. We used the MR method to investigate the causal association of genetically predicted ALM with the risk of stroke and AD based on ALM-related SNPs and effects of SNPs on the outcomes from GWASs, which can reduce bias induced by residual confounding and reverse causality. Second, sensitivity analyses were applied to evaluate the robustness of our study. Third, some potential confounding factors were further analyzed by multivariable MR methods, including BMI, T2DM, LDL-C, and AF.
However, several limitations in this study should be considered. First, this study utilized ALM data from the UK Biobank (UKB), which was measured using BIA rather than DXA. As we know, BIA is an indirect measurement method to measure muscle mass and may be less accurate than DXA, which could affect the results. Second, pleiotropy, especially the horizontal pleiotropy, is generally inevitable in MR analysis which would be likely to affect the reliability of our results, despite the lack of evidence from MR-Egger and MR-PRESSO methods. Besides, multivariable MR analyses were further applied by adjusting for some confounders. However, the pleiotropy could not be fully ruled out in the MR analysis. Third, the GWAS data was mainly derived from European, and caution should be exercised when generalizing our findings to different populations, particularly those of non-European ancestry. Fourth, we used summary statistics in this study and had no access to the patient-level data. Given the different incidences of low ALM, stroke, and AD by age and sex, we believe that investigating the casual associations of ALM with the risk of stroke and AD based on different ages and sexes would be of value.
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