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Association between lipid ratios and sarcopenia and the mediating roles of inflammatory biomarkers in a cross-sectional study from NHANES 2011–2018

Xiao-Lin Yin, Huihui Song, Hui Chen, Xiao-Rong Yang, Tong-Chao Zhang

Scientific Reports, 2025

849 participants · 16 citations

Abstract

Sarcopenia, which leads to reduced quality of life and increased medical burden, is challenging to diagnose in a timely manner. Lipid metabolism plays a role in sarcopenia, and this study explored the associations between blood lipid profile parameters and sarcopenia. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011–2018, we conducted weighted multivariate logistic regression to investigate the associations between lipid ratios and sarcopenia, including non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDL-C) to HDL-C, triglyceride (TG) to HDL-C, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) to HDL-C, and remnant cholesterol (RC) to HDL-C ratios. We performed subgroup analyses to assess interactions with other covariates and used mediation models to evaluate the mediating roles of inflammatory biomarkers. We included a total of 9500 non-sarcopenic and 849 sarcopenic participants aged 18–59 years. While we observed modest correlations between individual lipid components and sarcopenia, we obtained significant positive associations for lipid ratios. Specifically, non-HDL/HDL-C (OR = 1.09; 95% CI 1.03–1.15; P = 0.003), TG/HDL-C (OR = 1.02; 95% CI 1.02–1.04; P = 0.014), LDL/HDL-C (OR = 1.27; 95% CI 1.11–1.45; P < 0.001), and RC/HDL-C ratios (OR = 1.55; 95% CI 1.16–2.07; P = 0.004) showed strong associations with sarcopenia. These associations were more pronounced in younger participants, those with lower family economic status, and those without self-reported…

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