Abstract
Older adults lose muscle mass and strength at different speeds after the cessation of physical exercise, which might be genotype related. This study aimed to explore the genetic association with changes in muscle mass and strength one year after the cessation of structured training in an older population. Participants (n = 113, aged between 61 and 81 years) who performed one-year of combined fitness (n = 44) or whole-body vibration (n = 69) training were assessed one year after the cessation of the training. Whole-body skeletal muscle mass and knee strength were measured. Data-driven genetic predisposition scores (GPSs) were calculated and analysed in a general linear model with sex, age, body mass index and post-training values of skeletal muscle mass or muscle strength as covariates. Forty-six single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from an initial 170 muscle-related SNPs were identified as being significantly linked to muscular changes after cessation. Data-driven GPSs and over time muscular changes were significantly related (p < 0.01). Participants with higher GPSs had less muscular declines during the cessation period while data-driven GPSs accounted for 26–37% of the phenotypic variances. Our findings indicate that the loss of training benefits in older adults is partially genotype related.
Highlights
The process of ageing is commonly accompanied by progressive loss in skeletal muscle mass and muscle strength [1]
Since our previous study has reported the adaptive changes of muscle mass and muscle strength induced by exercise [24], this study mainly focused on the muscular changes in these exercise groups after the cessation
Between-group comparisons showed that participants in the FIT and the whole-body vibration (WBV) groups were not different for muscle mass and muscle strength at both post-training and follow-up tests (p > 0.05)
Summary
The process of ageing is commonly accompanied by progressive loss in skeletal muscle mass and muscle strength [1]. A 3-year follow-up study of Goodpaster et al [2] on older adults aged 70–79 years has revealed a 1% annual loss in leg lean mass with muscle strength decreasing three times faster than muscle mass. Physical performance and quality of life in older adults are largely affected by functional and structural alterations in ageing muscles [4] Exercise, such as fitness training and whole-body vibration (WBV) training, has been well established as an effective non-pharmacological method to counteract muscle degeneration in older adults [5,6,7,8]. Besides the large number of studies on exercise benefits for ageing muscle, many studies have focused on the lasting benefits of exercise by describing the loss of muscle strength and size
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