Men and women need different muscle-building strategies for healthy aging: study

A new study finds that men and women need different strategies for “muscle-building” to stay healthy in later life.

It said men should focus on building muscle mass and reducing their abdominal circumference, while women should focus on maintaining a healthy weight and achieving a balance of fat and muscle.

On Tuesday, four Korean researchers released their analysis of cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk in older adults based on changes in muscle mass, using data from the Korean Frailty and Aging Cohort.

They are Professor Park Jun-hee of the Health Promotion Center at Samsung Medical Center, Professor Won Chang-won, Dr. Shin Hyung-eun, and Professor Kim Mi-ji of the Department of Family Medicine at Kyung Hee University Hospital.

The researchers selected 1,634 older adults aged 70 to 84 enrolled in the cohort, 353 with sarcopenia and 353 without sarcopenia, matched by age and gender to compare the effects of changes in body composition over two years. Sarcopenia was diagnosed by assessing limb muscle mass and physical functions, such as handgrip strength and walking speed.

The researchers found that building muscle mass was effective in preventing cardiovascular and metabolic disease in older men without sarcopenia. For every 1 kilogram increase in limb muscle mass, the risk of cardiovascular disease was reduced by 41 percent, and the risk of hyperlipidemia was reduced by 28 percent. On the other hand, a one-centimeter increase in waist circumference was associated with a 32 percent increase in the risk of hypertension.

In contrast, in women without sarcopenia, increasing muscle mass was not protective against cardiovascular disease. Instead, the “obesity paradox” was confirmed: in women without sarcopenia, weight gain was associated with a decrease in cardiometabolic disease. A one-kilogram increase in weight was associated with a 21 percent reduction in the risk of hyperlipidemia.

Gaining muscle mass was not enough to protect against cardiovascular and metabolic disease in older adults with sarcopenia, both in men and women. In women with pre-existing sarcopenia, gaining muscle mass alone tripled the risk of hyperlipidemia. The increase in intramuscular fat may also have had a negative effect, the researchers explained.

Based on these findings, the researchers recommend that women build muscle mass before the risk of sarcopenia sets in later in life, but that women should also improve their muscle quality by combining aerobic exercise to prevent the buildup of intramuscular fat to help prevent cardiovascular and metabolic disease.

“Once sarcopenia occurs, increasing muscle mass alone does not help prevent cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in both men and women,” the study said. “To live a healthy old age, people should maintain their muscle mass to prevent sarcopenia from occurring.”

The findings were published in Maturitas, the official journal of the European Menopause and Andropause Society.