Table 1.

Baseline characteristics by sarcopenia groups.

	Sarcopenia a				p-value b
	Total n = 1,500	None/recovery n = 1,238	Incident n = 99	Persistent n = 163
Exposure
Anemia (%)	17.39	15.60	30.51	26.41	0.07
Covariates
Sex (female, %)	54.48	55.75	44.70	49.47	0.44
Age (years)	61.19 (0.49)	59.77 (0.45)	69.02 (1.55)	69.86 (1.87)	<0.01
Body mass index [weight (kg) ÷ squared height (meters)]	28.69 (0.25)	28.53 (0.27)	29.51 (1.03)	29.72 (0.71)	0.27
Multimorbidity (2 or more chronic conditions) (%)	61.66	59.97	61.68	77.38	0.09
C-reactive protein (mg/L)	1.42 (0.09)	1.42 (0.10)	1.67 (0.46)	1.22 (0.22)	0.61
Physical activity (%)
Low	45.81	44.41	67.63	46.20
Moderate	25.85	26.27	21.84	24.24
High	28.34	29.32	10.53	29.56	0.19
Sedentary behavior (daily sitting hours)	2.65 (0.14)	2.67 (0.15)	2.19 (0.41)	2.78 (0.33)	0.53
Alcohol consumption (%)
Never	37.09	35.52	50.02	44.19
Ever drinker, no longer	47.27	48.52	42.67	38.37
Current drinker (low risk)	10.33	10.75	1.66	11.46
Current drinker (high risk)	5.30	5.21	5.66	5.98	0.57
Tobacco use (%)
Never	71.41	71.80	67.80	69.81
Ever smoked, no longer	13.51	12.99	12.08	19.15
Current smoker, not daily	2.30	2.35	4.11	0.80
Current smoker, daily	12.79	12.86	16.01	10.24	0.82
Fruits and vegetable consumption (number of portions per day)	2.82 (0.12)	2.81 (0.13)	3.26 (0.20)	2.69 (0.30)	0.10
Food insecurity (%)
None	78.08	78.38	86.01	70.72
Moderate	8.08	9.02	3.66	1.92
Severe	13.84	12.60	10.33	27.37	<0.01
Schooling (years of formal education)	6.20 (0.38)	6.51 (0.42)	4.65 (0.61)	4.26 (0.64)	<0.01
Socioeconomic status (assets index)	0.13 (0.09)	0.19 (0.10)	0.16 (0.16)	0.21 (0.25)	0.03
Dwelling area (rural, %)	22.32	24.01	18.24	9.04	0.10

^aCells are percentages or means (std. error).

^bp-value for chi-square or ANOVA tests.