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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1416796

Association between persistent musculoskeletal pain and incident sarcopenia in China: the mediating effect of depressive symptoms

Provisionally accepted
Shengliang Zhou Shengliang Zhou 1Yuan Liu Yuan Liu 1Yan Zhang Yan Zhang 2Naijia Luo Naijia Luo 1Quan Chen Quan Chen 1Meiling Ge Meiling Ge 2Bin Shen Bin Shen 1*
  • 1 Orthopedic Research Institute, Department of Orthopedics, Sichuan University West China Hospital, Chengdu, Sichuan Province,, China
  • 2 National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Diseases, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

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

    To evaluate the association between musculoskeletal pain and incident sarcopenia and further explore the mediating effect of depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older Chinese adults.Using the data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study 2011 and 2015, we included 12788 participants in the cross-sectional analysis and 8322 for the longitudinal analysis.Musculoskeletal pains located in the neck, back, waist, shoulder, arm, wrist, leg, knee, and ankle were self-reported at baseline and follow-up. The diagnosis criteria of sarcopenia was based on the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia 2019. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to evaluate the association between musculoskeletal pain, and the Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) method was used to explore the mediating effect of depressive symptoms.Over the 4-year follow-up, 445 participants were identified with incident sarcopenia. In the longitudinal analysis, participants with baseline musculoskeletal pain (adjusted odds ratio (OR):1.37, 95 % confidence interval (CI): 1.07-1.76), persistent musculoskeletal pain (OR:1.68, 95%CI: 1.28-2.24), and persistent waist pain (OR:1.46, 95%CI: 1.04-2.03) were significantly associated with increased the risk of incident sarcopenia. Furthermore, depressive symptoms were found to partially mediate the association between musculoskeletal pain and incident sarcopenia.Persistent musculoskeletal pain, especially in waist area, was positively associated with a higher risk of sarcopenia among the middle-aged and older Chinese. Depressive symptoms played a partial mediating role in this association.

    Keywords: Sarcopenia, Musculoskeletal Pain, CHARLS, Mediation analysis, Depression

    Received: 13 Apr 2024; Accepted: 26 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zhou, Liu, Zhang, Luo, Chen, Ge and Shen. 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: Bin Shen, Orthopedic Research Institute, Department of Orthopedics, Sichuan University West China Hospital, Chengdu, Sichuan Province,, China

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