Sarcopenia and Dinapenia in Patients with Ulcerative Colitis (Cross-Sectional Observational Study)

Background. Sarcopenia is a generalised, progressive decline in skeletal muscle mass, strength and performance leading to reduced quality of life, increased risk of falls, hospitalisation and mortality. Primary sarcopenia results from age-related changes in muscle tissue. In certain cases, sarcopenia develops secondary as a consequence of diseases including ulcerative colitis (UC), which is associated with a systemic inflammatory process, malabsorption syndrome, restriction of patients’ physical activity and nutrient deficiencies. The term “dynapenia” or “probable sarcopenia” has been proposed to describe the decrease in muscle strength. Studies have demonstrated that muscle strength is a more relevant marker for predicting adverse outcomes because its measurement is more practical, whereas muscle mass is technically difficult to measure. Aims — to increase the effectiveness of the diagnosis of dinapenia, to assess the prevalence and risk factors of its formation in patients with UC. Methods. A single-centre, observational cross-sectional study included 80 UC patients. To identify factors associated with the development of dinapenia, patients with dinapenia were compared with patients without dinapenia. The investigated parameters in patients: sex, age, body mass index, peculiarities of the course of the disease, ongoing treatment, concomitant pathology, peculiarities of nutrition, nutritional deficiency, malabsorption syndrome, bad habits, psychological stress and sleep duration, physical activity, laboratory indicators of inflammation, myokine-adipokine profile. Statistical parameters were calculated using Statistica 10.0.1011.0 programme. Results. Dinapenia is present in 32.5% of UC patients. Risk factors for the formation of dinapenia in UC patients include female sex (p = 0.0003); nutritional insufficiency (p = 0.021); low physical activity (p = 0.010); artificial feeding in infancy (p = 0.024); inflammation, namely C-reactive protein, autoantibodies of class G against double-stranded DNA (p = 0.006; p = 0.002 respectively). Patients with UC with dinapenia significantly more often gave a positive answer to the questionnaire question “Does daily activity cause you a lot of stress?” (p = 0.048). In the group of UC patients with dinapenia, the level of cortisol in evening saliva was significantly higher than in the comparison group (p = 0.005). Conclusions. Sarcopenia and UC are multifactorial conditions with common developmental mechanisms that can burden each other. Dynamometry is not technically difficult and is justified from an economic point of view. The timely detection of dinapenia and its correction will additionally affect the mechanisms of UC pathogenesis in order to improve the quality of life and prognosis of patients.