Effects of Exercise and Nutrition Supplementation in Community-dwelling Older Chinese People with Sarcopenia: a Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Limited trials examining the effect of exercise and nutrition supplementation in older people with sarcopenia are available.

Objectives: to assess the impact of resistance exercise program targeting muscle strength and power with and without nutrition supplementation on gait speed, body composition, physical function and quality of life.

Methods: this trial randomized 113 community-dwelling older Chinese adults aged ≥65 and with sarcopenia defined using the Asian Criteria into one of the three groups: exercise program alone, combined-exercise program and nutrition supplement or waitlist control. The exercise program consisted of 90-min group training twice weekly and one-home session weekly for 12 weeks. Participants in the combined group were additionally asked to consume nutrition supplement twice daily for 12 weeks. Both groups were encouraged to keep home exercise after intervention period for another 12 weeks to detect sustained effect. The primary outcome was gait speed.

Results: at 12 and 24 weeks, gait speed did not differ significantly between groups. Significant improvement in leg extension, and five-chair stand test occurred in both intervention groups that persisted to 24 weeks. Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly improved in both intervention groups that persisted until 24 weeks only in the combined group. Lower limb muscle and appendicular skeletal muscle mass increased significantly in the combined group but the increase was not sustained to 24 weeks.

Conclusion: the exercise program with and without nutrition supplementation had no significant effect on the primary outcome of gait speed but improved the secondary outcomes of strength and the five-chair stand test in community-dwelling Chinese sarcopenic older adults.

Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT02374268.