Sarcopenia....what?

Q: I’m a firefighter in my early fifties, and I try to maintain some level of fitness for the job and be healthy. Recently I noticed I seem to be losing muscle mass. What’s going on?

A: Your may be suffering from sarcopenia. Sarcopenia means age related loss of muscle mass. It is part of the erosion cycle where we get reminded that we’re no longer twenty. It generally starts to set in around age 45, when muscle mass begins to decline at a rate of about 1 percent a year.

Why does sarcopenia happen? So far, the best guess is that it’s caused by a gradual loss of certain nerve cells that link the brain to the muscles; in turn, loss of chemical connections between the two causes a loss of muscle cells themselves. Other age-related declines may play into it as well. For instance, the immune system gradually weakens, and that, some researchers suggest, may increase levels of substances that break down muscle. In addition, levels of hormones that stimulate muscle growth—estrogen, testosterone, and growth hormone—fall with age.

How do we stop it? While you can’t completely halt sarcopenia in its tracks, there’s much you can do to slow it dramatically and thereby remain nearly as active in your 50s and 60s as much earlier in life. So here’s the plan, can you say, strength training? For a couple times a week of strength training—about 30 minutes a session—you get so much back. I can’t emphasize enough how critical it is. Preserving your muscle mass is about more than just keeping up a particular level of fitness. It can also impact your ability to withstand disease. When you’re sick, the body burns protein faster than usual, pulling protein components from the muscles and delivering them to the immune system, liver, and other organs for use in healing wounds and building the antibodies and white blood cells needed to fight illness. If the muscle protein “reservoir” has already been depleted by sarcopenia, there’s that much less ammunition available.

Rest assured that it’s perfectly safe, even for people with conditions like arthritis or heart disease. Get a doctor’s ok before you start, slow down sarcopenia and enjoy the many benefits of strength training.

Remember,” “If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it”.