Muscle Loss Starts Now - What You Need to Know About Sarcopenia with Dr Tanya Elliott

Hi, this is Marijo Tinlin from the Teaching Your Toddler Show. Today we have a very special guest. Tanya Elliott is here to talk to us about something that is very surprising for a lot of people, I think. She has a new survey out that reveals some startling facts about women and muscle loss.

Welcome to the show, Doctor Elliott. Tell us a little bit about this survey.

Dr Elliott:

Sure. Thanks for having me. So Viactiv, which is a leading women's supplement brand, commissioned a survey of 2,000 women to understand what their health priorities are. So first things first, the good news. Over 60% of women really are prioritizing their strength and mobility. They care about their health and they care about their strength and mobility.

The concerning thing about this is very few women knew what the word sarcopenia is. Now, I wonder, do you, Marijo, know what the word sarcopenia is?

Marijo Tinlin

I do only because of my mother, but yes, tell the rest of us.

Dr Elliott

Okay. Okay. Everyone knows what osteoporosis is, right? That's the loss of bone. Sarcopenia comes first. That's loss of muscle mass. And we're not talking about it enough. And the survey revealed that only 6% of women knew what sarcopenia was and what to do about it.

Right? So that's really concerning, and if you ask any, you know, friends or family members, they probably don't know what sarcopenia is either. So, as clinicians, we need to start talking about it more, and women need to be more aware of it, because preserving your muscle strength is incredibly important.

Loss of muscle starts in our 30s, and we lose about 8% of muscle per decade, and then step on the accelerator in your 50s and 60s, because that accelerates even more, that muscle loss accelerates even more, and that's why we end up.

with women with osteoporosis, and an increase in fall risk, and then having complications from hip fracture, right? So we need to start talking about the muscle first.