In a study from the Federal University of São Carlos, scientists found that a combination of anemia and weak muscles in older people heightens the risk of death in ten years by 64% for men and by 117% for women.
Anemia alone increases the risk of dying by 58% in men. For women, dynapenia (loss of muscle strength) is a more important risk factor on its own, increasing the risk of death by 68%.
The two conditions together pose an even greater risk, especially for elderly women.
Previous studies showed that anemia is a risk factor for reduced muscular strength because oxygen is captured by iron in red blood cells and less oxygen reaches the body’s tissues in a person with anemia. Muscles are weakened by impaired oxygenation.
The problem of poor oxygenation is what scientists call hypoxia, which affects not just muscles but all the body’s organs and systems.
In the study, the team analyzed data for 5,310 English people aged 50 and over who were followed for ten years by the English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA).
Of the 5,310 participants, 84% had neither anemia nor dynapenia, while 10.7% had dynapenia, 3.8% had anemia, and 1.5% had both.
In addition to investigating the combined impact of anemia and dynapenia on the risk of death in older people, the researchers also set out to see if the impact was different in men and women.
The results showed that both conditions were more frequent in women, and the combination was even more dangerous for them than for men.
This difference may occur because men generally have more muscle mass than women, so when men have anemia, the musculoskeletal system is less affected. That’s only one of the possible explanations.
Dynapenia alone was a mortality risk for women, but anemia alone was not. Women typically lose muscle mass as they age, and it may be the case that anemia adds to this loss.
Although men generally have more muscle mass, they lose it faster than women as they age.
However, because women generally have less muscle mass, their strength may decline over time, and this affects mortality.
If you care about muscle health, please read studies about fruit that may keep your muscles young, and a new drug could delay muscle aging.
For more information about muscles, please see recent studies about exercises that could help protect your muscles, and results showing vitamin D deficiency may lead to poor muscle function in older people.
The study was conducted by Mariane Marques Luiz et al and published in the Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics.
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