ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Aging Psychiatry
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1595625
This article is part of the Research TopicHealthy Aging in Action: Addressing the Challenges of Cognitive Decline and Dementia and Contributing to a Better Future for Population AgingView all 8 articles
The relationship between cognitive function and muscle mass in older adults: a longitudinal study based on CLHLS
Provisionally accepted
- 1Deqing People's Hospital, Huzhou, China
- 2Huzhou University, Huzhou, Zhejiang, China
- 3Huzhou Central Hospital, Huzhou, China
- 4Yuhuan Second People’s Hospital, Yuhuan, China
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Background: Sarcopenia is the main cause of disability in an aging society and increases the risk of death in older adults. However, the relationship between cognitive function and muscle mass and the underlying mechanisms are not clear. This study aims to investigate the relationship between cognitive function and muscle mass in the older adults.This study was based on the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), phase III from 2011 to 2018. We analyzed 2536 participants aged ≥60 years. SPSS 27.0 software was used for data screening and statistical analysis, and MPLUS 8.7 and R4.4.2 software were used to construct cross-lag models and restricted cubic splints.Results: In this study, out of 2,536 participants, there were 1,283 males (50.6%) and 1,253 females (49.4%), with an average age of 77.54 ± 8.6 years. Correlation analysis showed that cognitive function was positively correlated with muscle mass in older adults. At all time points (P<0.05). The cross-lag model revealed a one-way prediction effect: The path coefficients of ASMI→MMSE in T1→T2 and T2→T3 were statistically significant in the general population, men and women (P<0.05), and the path coefficients β were all greater than 0. The association of MMSE → ASMI was significant only at the T2 → T3 time point in the overall population (β = 0.010, P < 0.05), and not statistically significant at T1 → T2 and T2 → T3 time points in both males and females (P <0.05). RCS results showed that the association between skeletal muscle mass and cognitive impairment in the total population (P overall trend <0.05, P non-linear <0.05), older men (P overall trend <0.05, P non-linear <0.05) and older women (P overall trend <0.05, P non-linear <0.05) showed a nonlinear increasing trend. It is suggested that ASMI should be maintained at 7.45kg/m 2 and 5.68kg/m 2 or above in older men and women, respectively.Muscle mass had a major predictive effect on cognitive trajectory, especially in females. Maintaining ASMI above gender-specific thresholds may help slow cognitive decline,
Keywords: older adults, Cognitive Function, muscle mass, Cross lag, restricted cubic splines
Received: 18 Mar 2025; Accepted: 19 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shi, Zhang, Yang, Yang, Wang and Hong. 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: Yanfang Hong, Yuhuan Second People’s Hospital, Yuhuan, China
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