A narrative review on the impact of sarcopenic obesity and its psychological consequence in quality of life

Association between weight-adjusted-waist index and depression in US adults: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Current evidence implicates a significant association between depression and obesity and related metabolic dysfunction. The weight-adjusted-waist index (WWI) was recently identified as an ideal index that integrates total body fat, muscle mass, and bone mass. This study investigated the relationship between WWI and depressive symptoms in adults.

METHODS

Participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2005-2018) were enrolled. Depressive symptom severity was measured with the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Survey-weighted multivariable logistic regression, subgroup analysis, and generalized additive models were used to determine the relationship between WWI and depressive symptoms.

RESULTS

A total of 34,575 participants were included, with a mean WWI of 11.01; 2,979 participants were suspected of having depressive symptoms (PHQ-9 score ≥ 10). A significant positive association was identified between WWI and depressive symptoms (odds ratio = 1.416, 95 % confidence interval: 1.303-1.539, P < 0.0001). Subgroup analyses suggested that the association between WWI and depressive symptoms was stronger in individuals who were female, overweight, divorced, middle-aged or older (over 40 years old), and had diabetes. Furthermore, the non-linear multivariable regression revealed an inflection point for the WWI at 11.438, and the association was only significant when the WWI was higher than this point.

LIMITATIONS

This study was retrospective and only included participants from the United States; therefore, further validation is needed from studies in other countries, especially middle-to-low-income countries, using longitudinal cohorts.

CONCLUSIONS

This study identified a significant positive association between WWI and depressive symptoms.

Landscape and research trends of sarcopenic obesity research: A bibliometric analysis

Background

Sarcopenic obesity (SO) is a condition characterized by the coexistence of sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass and function) and obesity. This condition has emerged as a public health concern, particularly with the aging population. Despite an approximately 30-year history of SO research, detailed quantitative analysis of existing research was never undertaken. We aimed to depict the landscape of SO research using bibliometric analysis of literature.

Methods

We searched the Web of Science Core Collection on January 15, 2023. The following bibliometric indicators were included: publication trend, the most influential country, the most active discipline, productive institutions, productive journals, prolific and highly cited authors, and highly cited publications. We constructed co-authorship network to explore individual-level, institutional-level, and international-level collaborative patterns in the VOSviewer or Sci2 software. Furthermore, keywords co-occurrence network was extracted by the VOSviewer software, and the burst-detection analysis of keywords was performed using the CiteSpace software.

Results

A total of 2023 original articles were retrieved for data analysis. The publications increased dramatically in the last decade. The United States had the highest number of publications on SO (n = 904). The Seoul National University Hospital was the most prolific institution (n = 54) among the 2675 institutions analyzed. As for journals, Clinical Nutrition had the highest number of publications on SO (n = 75). Kim JH was the most prolific author (n = 25), while Cederholm T authored the most cited publication (9381 citations). More than 80 disciplines were involved in SO research, of which, "Geriatrics and Gerontology" was the most activated discipline. The European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP) consensus was the most cited publication (7209 citations). Moreover, the hotspots of SO have been shifting from its biology, prevalence, and risk factors to its outcomes, prognostic factors, complications, and quality of life. Its relationships also evolved from being between SO and aging to being between SO and other diseases.

Conclusions

Our study provided a comprehensive landscape of SO research, which may help researchers better identify key information and research trends in this field.