According to therapist Oksana Drapkina, you can suspect sarcopenia just by looking at yourself in the mirror. She wrote about this in her blog.
Sarcopenia is an atrophic degenerative change in skeletal muscles, leading to a gradual loss of muscle mass and strength. This is an age-related disease.
Drapkina listed the main symptoms:
- Flabbiness and sagging of the muscles on the shoulders and hips
- “Drying out” of the lower leg muscles
- Sagging of the muscles under the shoulder blades in the form of “lambrequins”
- Protruding belly
< li>Wobble gait
— Unfortunately, sarcopenia cannot be reversed. However, it is possible to prevent its development and slow down the process that has already begun, the doctor noted.
What will help:
1. Strength training. The doctor called it the “first line method.” For the elderly, training with small dumbbells and expanders from two to five times a week for up to an hour is suitable. Consult a doctor first!
2. A complete diet with sufficient protein. Elderly people are recommended from 1.0 to 1.2 g of protein per kg of body weight per day. In the presence of chronic kidney disease, the amount of protein is selected individually.
Doctors emphasize: if you have constant fatigue, difficulty lifting weights, pain in the spine, causeless weight loss, you need to be examined. A possible cause may be sarcopenia.
Previously, these changes began at the age of 45+, and accelerated at the age of 70. In the modern world, the processes of regeneration and restoration slow down already at 25–30 years. The reason lies in a sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition, but not only.
Possible causes of muscle loss:
- Inactivity
- Hormone imbalance (low testosterone in men and women)
- Collagen deficiency
- Vitamin D deficiency
- Reduced amount of proteins
- Chronic inflammatory diseases of the lungs, thyroid gland, skin diseases, allergic and autoimmune diseases.
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< b>Important! Information is provided for reference purposes. Ask a specialist about contraindications and side effects and under no circumstances self-medicate. At the first signs of illness, consult a doctor.
Oksana Drapkina Medicine Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Honored Doctor of the Russian Federation