ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health

Sec. Aging and Public Health

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1585986

This article is part of the Research TopicLipids and Wasting Disorders in Disease and AgingView all articles

Association between the non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio and sarcopenia: evidence from CHARLS

Provisionally accepted
Changbo  SunChangbo SunHonggang  JiangHonggang JiangHongmei  ZhuHongmei ZhuZhen  LuoZhen LuoShiyi  WangShiyi Wang*
  • Ningbo Chinese Medicine Hospital, Ningbo, China

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

BackgroundRecent studies have highlighted an association between lipid disorders and sarcopenia. The role of the non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (NHHR) has not been explored among Chinese adults. This study aimed to investigate the association between the NHHR and incident sarcopenia in the Chinese population.Methods: The study included a total of 4046 participants aged 50 years and older without a history of sarcopenia, from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). A multivariate logistic regression model and a restricted cubic spline model were used to investigate the association between NHHR and sarcopenia. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses were conducted to assess the robustness of the findings.Results: A total of 309 (7.6%) participants were newly diagnosed with sarcopenia in the 2015 wave. Participants in the highest NHHR quartile (≥3.99) had a significantly lower adjusted odds ratio for sarcopenia (OR=0.40; 95% CI, 0.280.58; p<0.001) compared with those in the lowest quartile (<2.24). Restricted cubic spline analysis revealed a nonlinear relationship between NHHR and sarcopenia risk (p for nonlinearity <0.05). In piecewise regression models, the adjusted OR for sarcopenia was 0.65 (95% CI, 0.550.78; p<0.001) among participants with NHHR <4.4, whereas no significant correlation was observed among those with NHHR ≥ 4.4. No significant interactions were found between NHHR and age, sex, hypertension, or diabetes in stratified analysis (p for interaction >0.05).Conclusions: There is an inverse relationship between NHHR and sarcopenia risk in the Chinese population. A higher NHHR is associated with a lower risk of sarcopenia below the inflection point, beyond which NHHR is no longer significantly associated with sarcopenia risk.Keywords: NHHR, sarcopenia, lipid metabolism, dyslipidemia

Keywords: NHHR, Sarcopenia, Lipid Metabolism, Dyslipidemia, Chinese population

Received: 04 Mar 2025; Accepted: 11 Apr 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Sun, Jiang, Zhu, Luo and Wang. 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: Shiyi Wang, Ningbo Chinese Medicine Hospital, Ningbo, China

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