Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment (Apr 2020)

The Prevalence of Sarcopenia in Bipolar Disorder

  • Bulbul F,
  • Koca I,
  • Tamam L,
  • Demirkol ME,
  • Cakmak S,
  • Ersahinoglu E

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 16
pp. 915 – 921

Abstract

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Feridun Bulbul,1 Irfan Koca,2 Lut Tamam,1 Mehmet Emin Demirkol,1 Soner Cakmak,1 Emre Ersahinoglu1 1Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey; 2Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Fizyoclinic Wellness Center, Gaziantep, TurkeyCorrespondence: Feridun Bulbul Tel +90 532 3828857Email [email protected]: Sarcopenia (SP) is a syndrome described as generalized and progressive loss of muscle mass and strength that may cause fall, fractures, disability and death. Oxidative stress might be a probable etiologic factor in SP as well. SP is a comorbid syndrome that is seen in chronic illnesses. If these two considerations are taken together, one may also think that SP could be also seen in bipolar disorder (BD), because it is a chronic disorder and oxidative stress was related to both illnesses. In our study, we proposed to investigate the prevalence of SP in BD patients.Methods: We recruited 111 consecutive BD patients who registered in Mood Disorders Unit of Çukurova University. Blood tests were taken from patients to exclude the possible confounding factor related to SP. Socio-demographic variable forms were filled out. Every patient underwent physical mass, strength, and performance tests for the diagnosis of SP, which was determined by the criteria of European consensus.Results: The mean age of the patients was 38.00 ± 11.44 years (18– 68). Among the participants 69 (62.2%) were female, and 42 (37.8%) were male. Pre-SP was 6.3% (n=7), SP was 9.0% (n=10), and severe SP was 1.8% (n=2) in BD patients. The prevalence of pre-SP, SP and severe SP in BD patients was 7.1%, 16.7% and 2.4% in men and 5.8%, 4.3% and 1.4% in women, respectively. Although it was not marginally significant, a difference was observed in SP patients as they had more median psychotic features and median number of episodes per year for BD.Conclusion: This is the first study that investigated SP in BD patients. Sarcopenia was found more frequently in BD patients than in the general population.Keywords: sarcopenia, prevalence, depression, bipolar disorder

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