Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Nutr.
Sec. Clinical Nutrition
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1498757
This article is part of the Research Topic Systemic Markers of Muscle Loss – Volume II View all 9 articles

The Association Between Eight Complete Blood Count-Derived Inflammatory Markers and Muscle Health

Provisionally accepted
jingyuan zhang jingyuan zhang 1Yuqi Wang Yuqi Wang 2Heng Liu Heng Liu 1*hong cao hong cao 1*zhuolin lei zhuolin lei 1*shouquan cheng shouquan cheng 1*
  • 1 Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China
  • 2 Yidu Central Hospital of Weifang, Weifang, Shandong Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Most studies have evaluated sarcopenia and muscle health solely based on muscle mass. This study comprehensively examined the associations between eight inflammatory indicators and muscle mass and strength, with the aim of identifying an indicator capable of evaluating muscle health across multiple dimensions.Methods: This study included 10,440 participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 2011-2018) and 5,384 participants from NHANES (2011-2014). Multivariate logistic regression, smooth curve fitting, restricted cubic spline (RCS) analysis, subgroup analysis, and Spearman's correlation were used to comprehensively assess the associations between the eight inflammatory indicators and muscle mass and strength. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to compare the predictive abilities of the different indices for low muscle mass and muscle strength. Additionally, NHANES data were cross-validated with data from 554 patients at our hospital to evaluate the ability of the systemic immune inflammatory index (SII) to distinguish between low muscle mass and strength.After controlling for all potential confounding factors, multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that apart from the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), and derived NLR (dNLR), the neutrophil-to-monocyte-plus-lymphocyte ratio (NMLR), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), SII, systemic inflammation response index (SIRI), and pan-Conclusion: Compared with other inflammatory markers (e.g., PIV and dNLR), the SII demonstrated a more robust predictive ability, was less influence by covariates, and exhibited high generalization performance in internal and external validation. SII may be crucial in identifying "hidden sarcopenia" and the early stages of muscle functional decline.

    Keywords: Sarcopenia, muscle mass, Inflammation, indicators, NHANES

    Received: 19 Sep 2024; Accepted: 13 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 zhang, Wang, Liu, cao, lei and cheng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Heng Liu, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China
    hong cao, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China
    zhuolin lei, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China
    shouquan cheng, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.