Journal
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY
Volume 60, Issue 1, Pages 16-23Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2011.03776.x
Keywords
sarcopenic women; exercise; amino acid supplementation; muscle mass; muscle strength
Categories
Funding
- Ministry of Health and Welfare of Japan
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [22300243]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness of exercise and amino acid supplementation in enhancing muscle mass and strength in community-dwelling elderly sarcopenic women. DESIGN: Randomized controlled trial. SETTING: Urban community in Tokyo, Japan. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred fifty-five women aged 75 and older were defined as sarcopenic and randomly assigned to one of four groups: exercise and amino acid supplementation (exercise + AAS; n = 38), exercise (n = 39), amino acid supplementation (AAS; n = 39), or health education (HE; n = 39). INTERVENTION: The exercise group attended a 60-minute comprehensive training program twice a week, and the AAS group ingested 3 g of a leucine-rich essential amino acid mixture twice a day for 3 months. MEASUREMENTS: Body composition was determined using bioelectrical impedance analysis. Data from interviews and functional fitness parameters such as muscle strength and walking ability were collected at baseline and after the 3-month intervention. RESULTS: A significant group 9 time interaction was seen in leg muscle mass (P = .007), usual walking speed (P = .007), and knee extension strength (P = .017). The within-group analysis showed that walking speed significantly increased in all three intervention groups, leg muscle mass in the exercise + AAS and exercise groups, and knee extension strength only in the exercise + AAS group (9.3% increase, P = .01). The odds ratio for leg muscle mass and knee extension strength improvement was more than four times as great in the exercise + AAS group (odds ratio = 4.89, 95% confidence interval = 1.89-11.27) as in the HE group. CONCLUSION: The data suggest that exercise and AAS together may be effective in enhancing not only muscle strength, but also combined variables of muscle mass and walking speed and of muscle mass and strength in sarcopenic women. J Am Geriatr Soc 60:16-23, 2012.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available