to the editor: Sarcopenia has been defined initially as the decrease of muscle mass and function during aging. As pointed out by Hepple et al. (2), this definition has been extended to muscle atrophy situations such as undernourishment or acute catabolic states (ACS) like sepsis and cancer. Sarcopenia is not the result of pathology and has been reported among healthy, well nourished, physically active elderly subjects (3). It is a slow process, taking place over decades, whereas muscle loss during ACS occurs in days or weeks. Sarcopenia in an individual can even result from the random succession of ACS because the capacity to recover muscle mass lost during ACS decreases with aging (1, 4).
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