Correlates of Skeletal Muscle Mass and Differences Between Novel Subtypes in Recent-Onset Diabetes
The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2023
Herder C., Maalmi H., Saatmann N., Zaharia O., Strassburger K., Burkart V., Norman K., Roden M.
| Disease area | Application area | Sample type | Products |
|---|---|---|---|
Metabolic Diseases | Pathophysiology | Plasma |  Olink Target 96 |
Abstract
Context
Low skeletal muscle mass (SMM) is associated with long-standing diabetes but little is known about SMM in newly diagnosed diabetes.
Objective
We aimed to identify correlates of SMM in recent-onset diabetes and to compare SMM between novel diabetes subtypes.
Methods
SMM was normalized to body mass index (SMM/BMI) in 842 participants with known diabetes duration of less than 1 year from the German Diabetes Study (GDS). Cross-sectional associations between clinical variables, 79 biomarkers of inflammation, and SMM/BMI were assessed, and differences in SMM/BMI between novel diabetes subtypes were analyzed with different degrees of adjustment for confounders.
Results
Male sex and physical activity were positively associated with SMM/BMI, whereas associations of age, BMI, glycated hemoglobin A1c, homeostatic model assessment for β-cell function, and estimated glomerular filtration rate with SMM/BMI were inverse (all P < .05; model r2 = 0.82). Twenty-three biomarkers of inflammation showed correlations with SMM/BMI after adjustment for sex and multiple testing (all P < .0006), but BMI largely explained these correlations. In a sex-adjusted analysis, individuals with severe autoimmune diabetes had a higher SMM/BMI whereas individuals with severe insulin-resistant diabetes and mild obesity-related diabetes had a lower SMM/BMI than all other subtypes combined. However, differences were attenuated after adjustment for the clustering variables.
Conclusion
SMM/BMI differs between diabetes subtypes and may contribute to subtype differences in disease progression. Of note, clinical variables rather than biomarkers of inflammation explain most of the variation in SMM/BMI.