Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The purpose of the present study was to clarify the relationships between the risk of malnutrition as a preliminary stage of malnutrition and overall and oral measurements for sarcopenia in older Japanese adults. METHODS: Forty-five participants (79.7 ± 6.1 years) were included in the analysis. The nutrition status of the participants was assessed using the Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form (MNA-SF) and classified into two groups: normal and at risk of malnutrition. Overall measurements for sarcopenia in the present study were the skeletal muscle mass index, grip strength, and walking speed, while oral measurements were the cross-sectional area of the geniohyoid muscle, tongue pressure (TP), and oral diadochokinesis. RESULTS: MNA-SF correlated with TP (r = 0.347, p = 0.019). We observed decreases of 5.7 kPa in TP and 3.9 kg/cm(2) in BMI in the at risk of malnutrition group. A multiple regression analysis of parameters contributing to the risk of malnutrition identified TP as an independent variable (β = 0.913, p = 0.042). CONCLUSIONS: The present results demonstrate that the risk of malnutrition is associated with TP as an oral measurement for sarcopenia, but not overall measurements for sarcopenia. Therefore, low TP may be related with the risk of malnutrition.