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Why are muscles so important?

Carrying the shopping, running after an adventurous child, maintaining our posture and using our tippy toes to reach for the Acro Plant Protein in the top cupboard - these are just a few ways we rely on our muscles and bones to get through the day. 

Most of us have been touched by the sadness of watching loved ones grow older and more frail. It’s often only then that we realise the importance of staying physically strong. 

Looking at the scientific literature, we can isolate a few key reasons that healthy muscles contribute to longevity and quality of life. These include; 

  1. Preventing frailty 
  2. Improving metabolic health
  3. Maintaining functional ability 
  4. Maintaining independence 

 

Preventing frailty 

Frailty is a clinical syndrome associated with older age. It incorporates features of decreased energy, weight loss, slow walking speed, reduced strength, reduced muscle mass and reduced tolerance for exertion (1). It leads to an increased risk of falls, disability, hospitalisation and mortality (2). 

‘But surely it won’t happen to me’ we hear you say! In an Australian study looking at 8804 Australians aged 65 years or older, 21% of participants reached the criteria for frail and a further 48% were pre-frail. The prevalence amongst women was almost double that of men (3). This not only shows how common frailty is, but also demonstrates that females are at greater risk.

In 2020, a study showed that increased muscle mass was a protective factor for frailty  (4).  Another study concluded that frail participants had lower muscle density and muscle mass, and that the participants that met none of the frailty criteria had significantly higher muscle density.

 

Acro’s takeaways: 

  • Higher muscle mass and function →  reduced risk of frailty 
  • Lower muscle mass and function →  increased risk of frailty 

 

Maintaining functional ability and independence 

Living independently requires an ability to mobilise, feed oneself, bathe, dress, transfer from bed to chair, shop, do housework, prepare meals, shop and organise things like medication and money. These are all tasks we often do without thinking twice, but become more difficult with age-related decline. 

The two factors that generally contribute to this decline are cognitive ability and physical ability - the latter of which relies heavily on the strength of muscles and bones.  

A study in Australia showed that frail individuals were 76 percent more likely to die and 73 percent more likely to enter permanent residential aged care, compared to non-frail individuals (5)

Another study of 534 participants found that sarcopenic subjects (people with low muscle mass and function) had worse physical health-related quality of life, were at higher risk of falls, were more frail and demonstrated more fatigue after completing normal daily tasks (6)

Acro’s takeaways: 

  • Higher muscle density and function → improved functional capacity → improved ability to maintain a good quality of life and live independently into older age. 

 

Improving metabolic health

Muscle is considered an ‘endocrine organ’ which means it is responsible for secreting chemical messengers that send signals all around the body. These chemicals, called ‘myokines’, send signals to liver, fat tissue, pancreas, bone and the cardiovascular system, all of which are very important to our metabolic health (7). 

Metabolic syndrome refers to a number of interacting metabolic conditions including obesity, insulin resistance, high blood glucose, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Metabolic syndrome is closely associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and mortality (8). A study of 35,000+ participants found an association between sarcopenia and metabolic syndrome (9). Another found that “low relative skeletal muscle mass is a causative factor for developing metabolic syndrome and an increase in relative skeletal muscle mass over time may have a preventive effect against the development of metabolic syndrome.” (10) 

In essence, we can conclude that increasing your muscle mass and muscle function can protect your health now, and into older age. 

Head to our blog ‘how to optimise your muscle health’ to start working towards your healthy future. 

 

References: 

  1. Fried LP, Tangen CM, Walston J, et al. Frailty in older adults: evidence for a phenotype. JGerontolA BiolSciMedSci. 2001;56(3):M146–M156. doi: 10.1093/gerona/56.3.m146.
  2. Xue QL. The frailty syndrome: definition and natural history. Clin Geriatr Med. 2011 Feb;27(1):1-15. doi: 10.1016/j.cger.2010.08.009. PMID: 21093718; PMCID: PMC3028599.
  3. Thompson MQ, Theou O, Karnon J, Adams RJ, Visvanathan R. Frailty prevalence in Australia: Findings from four pooled Australian cohort studies. Australas J Ageing. 2018 Jun;37(2):155-158. doi: 10.1111/ajag.12483. Epub 2018 Jan 5. PMID: 29314622.
  4. Xu L, Zhang J, Shen S, Hong X, Zeng X, Yang Y, Liu Z, Chen L, Chen X. Association Between Body Composition and Frailty in Elder Inpatients. Clin Interv Aging. 2020;15:313-320 https://doi.org/10.2147/CIA.S243211
  5. Toson B, Edney LC, Haji Ali Afzali H, Visvanathan R, Khadka J, Karnon J. Economic burden of frailty in older adults accessing community-based aged care services in Australia. Geriatr. Gerontol. Int. 2024; 24: 939–947. https://doi.org/10.1111/ggi.14955
  6. C. Beaudart, J.Y. Reginster, J. Petermans, S. Gillain, A. Quabron, M. Locquet, J. Slomian, F. Buckinx, O. Bruyère, Quality of life and physical components linked to sarcopenia: The SarcoPhAge study, Experimental Gerontology, Volume 69, 2015, Pages 103-110, ISSN 0531-5565, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exger.2015.05.003.
  7. Kim G, Kim JH. Impact of Skeletal Muscle Mass on Metabolic Health. Endocrinol Metab (Seoul). 2020 Mar;35(1):1-6. doi: 10.3803/EnM.2020.35.1.1. PMID: 32207258; PMCID: PMC7090295.
  8. Lakka HM, Laaksonen DE, Lakka TA, Niskanen LK, Kumpusalo E, Tuomilehto J, et al. The metabolic syndrome and total and cardiovascular disease mortality in middle-aged men. JAMA. 2002;288:2709–2716. doi: 10.1001/jama.288.21.2709
  9. Zhang H, Lin S, Gao T, Zhong F, Cai J, Sun Y, et al. Association between sarcopenia and metabolic syndrome in middle-aged and older non-obese adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Nutrients. 2018;10:E364. doi: 10.3390/nu10030364
  10.  Kim G, Lee SE, Jun JE, Lee YB, Ahn J, Bae JC, et al. Increase in relative skeletal muscle mass over time and its inverse association with metabolic syndrome development: a 7-year retrospective cohort study. Cardiovasc Diabetol. 2018;17:23. doi: 10.1186/s12933-018-0659-2.