Finding good biomarkers for sarcopenia

The term sarcopenia describes the age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass and function. While this process, in principal, occurs in every adult person and already starts around the age of 40, it is associated with disability, morbidity, and increased mortality in some individuals. In the absence of clear clinical manifestation, we today lack the ability to differentiate between physiological and pathological sarcopenia. In this regard, we need good biomarkers that can be quantified in a reliable, cost-effective manner and that guide diagnosis and therapy of pathological sarcopenia in routine clinical practice and clinical trials. We suggest that a combination of serum markers, diagnostic imaging, and functional tests of muscle function would constitute an ideal biomarker panel. Importantly, sarcopenia biomarkers will have to be tested and validated in clinical trials.