Role of Anti-Inflammatory Cytokines on Muscle Mass and Performance Changes in Elderly Men and Women.

OBJECTIVES

Investigate the presence of a correlation between systemic inflammatory profile of community-dwelling individuals and the loss of muscular mass and performance in old age over a 4.5y follow-up, focusing on the role of anti-inflammatory cytokines in muscular changes in elderly.

DESIGN

Longitudinal clinical study.

SETTING

Subjects were randomly selected from lists of 11 general practitioners in the city of Verona, Italy.

PARTICIPANTS

The study included 120 subjects, 92 women and 28 men aged 72.27±2.06 years and with BMI of 26.52±4.07 kg/m2 at baseline.

MEASUREMENTS

Six minutes walking test (6MWT), appendicular and leg fat free mass (FFM) as measured with Dual Energy X-ray absorptiometry, were obtained at baseline and after 4.5 years (4.5y) of mean follow-up. Height, weight, body mass index (BMI), and circulating levels of TNFα, IL-4, IL-10, and IL-13 were evaluated at baseline.

RESULTS

A significant reduction of appendicular FFM, leg FFM and 6MWT performance (all p<0.001) was observed after 4.5 y follow-up. In a stepwise regression model, considering appendicular FFM decline as dependent variable, lnIL-4, BMI, baseline appendicular FFM, lnTNFα and lnIL-13 were significant predictors of appendicular FFM decline explaining 30.8% of the variance. While building a stepwise multiple regression considering leg FFM as a dependent variable, lnIL-4, BMI and leg FFM were significant predictors of leg FFM decline and explained 27.4% of variance. When considering 6MWT decline as a dependent variable, baseline 6MWT, lnIL-13 and lnTNFα were significant predictors of 6MWT decline to explain 22.9% of variance.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study suggest that higher serum levels of anti-inflammatory markers, and in particular IL-4 and IL-13, may play a protective role on FFM and performance maintenance in elderly subjects.