Frailty – An emerging high impact complication of diabetes requiring specific management approaches

Relationship Between Sarcopenia and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Elderly Patients

“…On the other hand, it has been shown that sulfonylureas, especially glibenclamide, and glinides may have an atrophic effect on muscles (35). Lastly, although insulin increases protein synthesis in young adults, this effect has not been observed among elderly individuals (36). In addition, new therapies such as testosterone, selective androgen receptor modulators, myostatin inhibitors, ghrelin analogs, vitamin K and mesenchymal stem cell therapy have been observed to be promising treatments (37).…”

Defining Undernutrition (Malnutrition) in Older Persons

“…While weight loss leads to the loss of muscle mass leading to sarcopenia, most persons with sarcopenia do not have excess weight loss as muscle loss is replaced by fat (5-8). Both weight loss and sarcopenia are major causes of the physical phenotype of frailty, but frailty should be considered a secondary nutritional condition (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16).…”

Weight loss is a major cause of frailty

“…The concept of frailty as a centrally important geriatric syndrome is now well established (1)(2)(3)(4). Frailty is defined as a syndrome where an older person is vulnerable to becoming functionally impaired or dying when exposed to a stressor (5).…”