Citation: Milewska, M.; Przekop, Z.; Szostak-W˛ egierek, D.; Chrzanowska, M.; Raciborski, F.; Traczyk, I.; Si´ nska, B.I.; Samoli ´ nski, B. Prevalence of Risk of Sarcopenia in Polish Elderly Population—A Population Study. Nutrients 2022, 14, 3466. https:// doi.org/10.3390/nu14173466 Academic Editor: Simone Perna Received: 2 August 2022 Accepted: 21 August 2022 Published: 24 August 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). nutrients Article Prevalence of Risk of Sarcopenia in Polish Elderly Population—A Population Study Magdalena Milewska 1 , Zuzanna Przekop 1, * , Dorota Szostak-W˛ egierek 1 , Mariola Chrzanowska 2,3 , Filip Raciborski 2 , Iwona Traczyk 4 , Beata Irena Si ´ nska 3 and Boleslaw Samoli ´ nski 2 1 Department of Clinical Dietetics, Faculty of Health and Science, Medical University of Warsaw, 01-445 Warszawa, Poland 2 Department of Prevention of Environmental Hazards and Allergology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Medical University of Warsaw, 02-091 Warszawa, Poland 3 Department of Econometrics and Statistics, Institute of Economics and Finance, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 02-787 Warszawa, Poland 4 Department of Human Nutrition, Faculty of Health Sciences, Medical University of Warsaw, 01-445 Warszawa, Poland * Correspondence: zuzanna.przekop@gmail.com; Tel.: +48-22-57-20-931 Abstract: Sarcopenia in the elderly population is a public health challenge, and there are few data on its prevalence in Europe. In this study, we investigated the prevalence of sarcopenia in the elderly Polish population and its association with the level of obesity and co-existing diseases. We conducted a population-based cross-sectional study involving 823 men and 1177 women aged 65 years and older, randomly selected from the population living in the territory of the Republic of Poland between 2017 and 2020. We analyzed the results of body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR). Risk of sarcopenia was assessed with the simple questionnaire to rapidly diagnose sarcopenia (SARC-F), and sarcopenic obesity risk was defined as the combination of anthropometry and SARC-F results. In addition, we collected disease data with an author questionnaire. The prevalence of risk of sarcopenia was 18.6% (22.3% in women and 13.2% in men), and its incidence significantly increased with age in both sexes. The risk of sarcopenic obesity was more common in women than in men, and it was higher in the older age group, except for sarcopenic obesity diagnosed by the WHR criteria. The group of elderly with concomitant diseases had a higher risk of developing sarcopenia, which emphasizes the need to monitor sarcopenia when concomitant diseases are diagnosed. In both groups, risk of sarcopenia was associated with motor and respiratory system diseases, type 2 diabetes, and neurological diseases. This study highlights that the risk of sarcopenia in the elderly population affects women to a greater extent than men. It is important to identify the elderly at risk of sarcopenia in routine clinical practice to develop long-term prevention strategies. Keywords: sarcopenia; aged; frailty; obesity; risk factors 1. Introduction Sarcopenia is considered a muscle disorder characterized by progressive loss of muscle strength and mass due to aging and/or chronic diseases [1]. While many studies have been published on sarcopenia in Asian populations, there are far fewer studies examining the prevalence and clinical outcomes in the elderly in Europe. Depending on the criteria used to diagnose sarcopenia, discrepancies in the prevalence of sarcopenia can be observed. It ranges from 5–13% in 60–70 years old to 11–50% in people older than 80 years [2] and up to 76% of acutely hospitalized elderly patients [3,4]. The etiology of sarcopenia is multifactorial. Although age is a major cause, other intrinsic and extrinsic factors are also considered as possible causes for the development of sarcopenia, such as physical inactivity, polypharmacy, vitamin D deficiency, poor nutritional status, and multimorbidity [5]. Nutrients 2022, 14, 3466. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14173466 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/nutrients