Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutritional Epidemiology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1543290

Association Between Fish Intake and Incidence of Sarcopenia in Community-dwelling Older Adults After a 6-year Follow-up: The Korean Frailty and Aging Cohort Study

Provisionally accepted
Seunghyun Yi Seunghyun Yi 1Miji Kim Miji Kim 2Chang Won Won Chang Won Won 3Yongsoon Park Yongsoon Park 1*
  • 1 Department of Food and Nutrition, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • 2 Department of Health Sciences and Technology, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • 3 Department of Family Medicine, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

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

    Previous studies have suggested beneficial effects of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on sarcopenia. However, the associations of dietary fish intake with the prevalence of sarcopenia are inconsistent, and those with the incidence of sarcopenia has not been studied. This study investigated the hypothesis that seafood and fish consumption is inversely associated with the subsequent incidence of sarcopenia. Using data from the Korean Frailty and Aging Cohort Study, 503 non-sarcopenic community-dwelling Korean adults aged 70-84 years were followed-up for 6 years. Sarcopenia was defined according to the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia 2019 consensus. Dietary intake was assessed using two non-consecutive 24-h dietary recalls at baseline. The incidence of sarcopenia was 37.8% after the 6-year follow-up. The intake of oily fish was inversely associated with the incidence of sarcopenia (OR 0.99; 95% CI 0.98-1.00; p for trend = 0.046) and that of low gait speed (OR 0.98; 95% CI 0.97-1.00; p for trend = 0.016) after the 6-year follow-up, adjusting for confounding factors. Consumption of total seafood, fish, non-oily fish, or shellfish was not significantly associated with the incidence of sarcopenia or its parameters, such as muscle mass, handgrip strength, usual gait speed, 5-times sit-to-stand test, or the Short Physical Performance Battery. The findings demonstrate that the consumption of oily fish could be beneficial in preventing sarcopenia, particularly by improving usual gait speed in Korean community-dwelling older adults, suggesting oily fish as a strategy to reduce sarcopenia risk.

    Keywords: Sarcopenia, Oily fish, n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, Seafood, usual gait speed, Community-dwelling older adults

    Received: 11 Dec 2024; Accepted: 13 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Yi, Kim, Won and Park. 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: Yongsoon Park, Department of Food and Nutrition, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    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.