Jul 22, 2026 · 55 min · 20 segments
Muscle loss isn't just a normal part of aging—it can impact your strength, balance, and independence. In this episode, Professor David Scott explains what sarcopenia is, the early warning signs to…
David ScottGuestMikeHostSo, for people who may have never heard of the term sarcopenia, what exactly is it?
This is already a challenging question with the first question, because there's still a lot of debate about what sarcopenia actually is.
We can think of it as a process that to some extent, all of us from about the age of 35 are experiencing, which is that our muscles in some ways start to deteriorate and don't function as well as what they used to.
But sarcopenia, I guess, particularly in the last 10 years, there's been a real push to recognise it as a disability or a disease.
And so in around about 2016, it was entered into the international classifications of diseases as a disease entity.
which essentially means now that we have the potential that we can identify people who have obviously low levels of muscle mass and function and then provide a diagnosis of sarcopenia and proceed to managing that.
I guess in some respects it's difficult to define because we are all experiencing it.
But when we think of it in the clinical setting, there are certain people who have sarcopenia and others whose muscle mass and function is good enough that they wouldn't meet the criteria for sarcopenia.
So how common is sarcopenia and should the average person over 50 be concerned about it? It sounds like it because I'm over 35 now and I'm apparently I'm losing muscle.
Uh, so, uh, in terms of the disease state of sarcopenia, like I talked about, if we actually are classifying someone as, as having sarcopenia or not, um, based on certain criteria, um, Unfortunately, we don't have very clear definitions.
People are using lots of different criteria, but broadly, we would say that about 10 to 27% of older people, that is people over the age of 65, do meet some kind of definition for sarcopenia.
So that is quite a common disease, I think, when you think about it, that around about a quarter of older adults will have sarcopenia.
Um, should they be concerned about it? I, I like to say they should be alert, but not concerned necessarily.
Um, because, um, the great thing about sarcopenia is that we can really prevent and, uh, um, manage it, uh, quite well.
But we don't necessarily have to experience the real disabling effects of that if we can, in particular, undertake resistance training exercise that ensures that our muscle mass and function remains at a reasonably good level such that you would never really notice challenges in your everyday activity that you might find once you fall below those thresholds where we say muscle mass and function might be poor.
So what are some like early warning signs people may have that they're not even aware of?
So, for people who may have never heard of the term sarcopenia, what exactly is it?
This is already a challenging question with the first question, because there's still a lot of debate about what sarcopenia actually is.
We can think of it as a process that to some extent, all of us from about the age of 35 are experiencing, which is that our muscles in some ways start to deteriorate and don't function as well as what they used to.
But sarcopenia, I guess, particularly in the last 10 years, there's been a real push to recognise it as a disability or a disease.
And so in around about 2016, it was entered into the international classifications of diseases as a disease entity.
which essentially means now that we have the potential that we can identify people who have obviously low levels of muscle mass and function and then provide a diagnosis of sarcopenia and proceed to managing that.
I guess in some respects it's difficult to define because we are all experiencing it.
But when we think of it in the clinical setting, there are certain people who have sarcopenia and others whose muscle mass and function is good enough that they wouldn't meet the criteria for sarcopenia.
So how common is sarcopenia and should the average person over 50 be concerned about it? It sounds like it because I'm over 35 now and I'm apparently I'm losing muscle.
Uh, so, uh, in terms of the disease state of sarcopenia, like I talked about, if we actually are classifying someone as, as having sarcopenia or not, um, based on certain criteria, um, Unfortunately, we don't have very clear definitions.
People are using lots of different criteria, but broadly, we would say that about 10 to 27% of older people, that is people over the age of 65, do meet some kind of definition for sarcopenia.
So that is quite a common disease, I think, when you think about it, that around about a quarter of older adults will have sarcopenia.
Um, should they be concerned about it? I, I like to say they should be alert, but not concerned necessarily.
Um, because, um, the great thing about sarcopenia is that we can really prevent and, uh, um, manage it, uh, quite well.
But we don't necessarily have to experience the real disabling effects of that if we can, in particular, undertake resistance training exercise that ensures that our muscle mass and function remains at a reasonably good level such that you would never really notice challenges in your everyday activity that you might find once you fall below those thresholds where we say muscle mass and function might be poor.
So what are some like early warning signs people may have that they're not even aware of?
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