TARGETED nutrition interventions for sarcopenia may significantly enhance muscle strength and gait speed in older adults. This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluated host and gut microbiota altering strategies that used diet, prebiotics, probiotics or synbiotics to modify sarcopenia parameters in populations with a mean age of at least fifty years.
Investigators synthesized 49 nutrition-based intervention studies including 4,842 participants, the majority of whom were women. Probiotics emerged as a key gut microbiota focused intervention, improving muscle strength by 1.90 kilograms and gait speed by 0.08 meters per second. Fiber enriched whole food diets improved muscle strength by 1.25 kilograms. Energy restricted diets aimed at weight loss increased muscle mass when mean participant age was under sixty years and when interventions were no longer than twelve weeks. High protein diets improved muscle mass in women when maintained for at least twelve weeks.
Nutrition Interventions for Sarcopenia in Older Adults
The analysis indicates that specific nutrition interventions for sarcopenia can favorably influence muscle strength and related functional measures. Probiotics, which act partly through modulation of the gut microbiota, provided benefits in both strength and gait speed. Fiber enriched dietary patterns and high protein intake appeared to support muscle mass gains under defined age and duration conditions. Prebiotics and synbiotics were represented in fewer trials and contributed primarily to the qualitative synthesis, which also included studies enrolling participants with diagnosed sarcopenia, although these did not provide sufficient data for quantitative pooling.
Clinical Implications and Evidence Gaps
Most included studies were assessed as having a high risk of bias, and evidence certainty varied despite formal risk of bias and GRADE evaluations. The findings suggest that diet-based strategies and probiotics may become useful adjuncts to existing approaches for preserving muscle function and sarcopenia parameters in older adults, particularly women and those engaged in time limited interventions. The authors highlight the need for future trials to incorporate fecal sampling so that links between gut microbiota shifts and clinical responses can be clarified, and to strengthen the evidence base guiding nutrition interventions for sarcopenia.
Reference: Lapauw L et al. Effect of host and gut microbiota-altering interventions on sarcopenia or its defining parameters: a systematic review and meta-analysis of nutrition-based intervention studies. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2025;doi: 10.1007/s40520-025-03216-z.
