Association between Green Tea Consumption and Sarcopenia in Menopausal Women: a Cross Sectional Analysis of the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2008-2011

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Many studies of the effect of catechins, a major substance in green tea, on sarcopenia have been conducted using animal models or as in vitro experiments, revealing that they increase muscle mass, inhibit proteases, and promote satellite cell proliferation. No study has been conducted targeting human subjects relative to the correlation between green tea and sarcopenia. The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between green tea intake and sarcopenia in menopausal women using the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2008–2011).METHODS: This study included 3,473 menopausal women after excluding those diagnosed with gastric cancer and other cancers. The frequency of green tea intake was determined based on the Food Frequency Questionnaire, and the value acquired from calibrating the extremity muscle mass measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry with weight was used as the muscle mass. Sarcopenia was defined using values less than two standard deviations as cut-offs after determining the mean and standard deviation of the muscle mass in the group of young and healthy women.RESULTS: In menopausal women, the odds ratio of the group drinking a cup or less and two or more cups of green tea to that of the group not drinking green tea was 1.170 (0.891–1.536), and the 95% confidence interval was 1.530 (0.744–3.146). A significant linear trend was not observed in the result (P for trend 0.148).CONCLUSION: There was no significant correlation between green tea intake and sarcopenia in menopausal women in Korea.