Sarcopenic obesity: Causes and consequences

Sarcopenic obesity is a new clinical entity characterized by an excessive fat mass associated with a reduction in lean muscle mass. This phenotype needs to be defined from anthropological and functional criteria due to its underrated impact on health and in order to better assess the severity of obesity as BMI is now well recognized as insufficient to define this chronic disease with multiple comorbidities. Its complex pathophysiology involves mechanisms of muscle loss associated with aging such as anabolic resistance to nutritional factors, but also lipotoxicity whose effects on protein metabolism are currently being studied. This review focuses on this new to-be-considered phenotype in the clinical evaluation of obese subjects. (C) 2015 Societe francaise de nutrition. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.