Gut Liver.  2020 Sep;14(5):626-635. 10.5009/gnl19126.

Sarcopenia Is Independently Associated with the Degree of Liver Fibrosis in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Internal Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
  • 2Yonsei Liver Center, Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
  • 3Institute of Gastroenterology, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Abstract

Background/Aims
Sarcopenia is associated with liver fi- brosis in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and chronic hepatitis B. We investigated the association between sarcopenia and hepatic fibrotic burden in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
Methods
Patients with T2DM who had received a comprehensive medical health checkup were recruited. Muscle mass was assessed using com-puted tomography. Fibrotic burden was assessed using the fibrosis-4 index (FIB-4). The study population was divided by quartile stratification of the lumbar skeletal muscle index (LSMI).
Results
Among 309 patients with T2DM, 75 (24.3%) had sarcopenia. These patients were significantly older and had higher FIB-4, whereas they had significantly lower body mass index (BMI) and LSMI than patients without sarcopenia (all p<0.05). The LSMI showed a significant negative cor-relation with the FIB-4 when analyzed in terms of quartile stratification (p=0.003). Multivariate analysis showed that female sex and higher BMI were independently associated with a reduced risk of sarcopenia (odds ratio [OR], 0.388; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.199 to 0.755 and OR, 0.704; 95% CI, 0.618 to 0.801; all p<0.05), whereas a higher FIB-4 was independently associated with an increased risk of sarcopenia (OR, 1.817; 95% CI, 1.180 to 2.797; p=0.007). Among patients with a BMI <25 kg/m 2 (n=165), those with sarcopenia (n=54, 32.7%) had a significantly higher FIB-4 than those without (n=111, 67.3%; 1.66 vs 1.38, p=0.004).
Conclusions
Sarcopenia is independently associated with fibrotic burden in patients with T2DM. Further studies should investigate whether the improvement of sarcopenia can ameliorate liver fibrosis in patients with T2DM.

Keyword

Sarcopenia; Liver fibrosis; Muscular atrophy; Dia- betes mellitus; Fibrosis-4 index
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