Dr Suneet Kumar Verma and Dr Sanjay Kalra
New research published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism has linked greater muscle mass in women with lower risk of type 2 diabetes.1 For men, this association was significant only among those with reduced muscle mass.
In this population-based cohort study, Chinese adults without a history of diabetes were enrolled from the WATCH (West chinA adulT health CoHort) database, a large health check-up-based database, between January 2010 and December 2020. The researchers used pSMI (predicted skeletal muscular mass index) to estimate skeletal muscular mass and measure the blood glucose variables. Self-reported history was evaluated to identify new-onset diabetes. The objective of the study was to examine the sex-specific associations between the predicted skeletal muscle mass index (pSMI) and incident type 2 diabetes.
This retrospective study involved 47,885 adults with a median age of 40 years; 53.2% of the study group were women. After a median follow-up of 5 years, 1836 participants (5.3% of men and 2.1% of women) developed type 2 diabetes. Results further showed that a higher pSMI in women was associated with a lower risk of incident type 2 diabetes with hazard ratio (HR) per standard deviation increment in pSMI of 0.79. In men, a nonlinear association between pSMI and incident type 2 diabetes was observed. Among men with pSMI ≤8.1 (indicative of lower muscular mass), a higher pSMI was associated with a lower risk of incident type 2 diabetes with HR of 0.58. However, there was no significant association between pSMI and incident diabetes (HR 1.08) for men with pSMI ≥8.1 (indicative of higher muscular mass).
To conclude, this study aimed to investigate whether there are differences in the relationship between pSMI and incident type 2 diabetes based on gender. It showed a gender difference in the association between skeletal muscle mass and incidence of type 2 diabetes. In women, a larger muscular mass was associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. This suggests that having more muscle mass may have a protective effect against developing type 2 diabetes in females. On the other hand, for men, this association was significant only among those with reduced muscle mass. This implies that in males, the relationship between muscular mass and the risk of type 2 diabetes is dependent on the initial muscle mass.
Reference
1. Dan Liu, et al. Sex-specific associations between skeletal muscle mass and incident diabetes: A population-based cohort study. Diabetes Obes Metab. 2023 Nov 23. doi: 10.1111/dom.15373.