Estimation of Muscle Mass in Older Adults Using Deuterated Creatine

Current methods for the quantification of muscle mass are indirect, lack precision, and often rely on expensive equipment that only provides limited (indirect) data on whole body muscle mass. Dual energy X ray absorptiometry has emerged as a potential precise measure of lean mass, easy to use in clinical practice and research. However, it assesses an indirect measurement of total-body skeletal muscle mass and its clinical use for determination of changes in muscle mass may be very limited due to instrumentation availability, particularly in field studies, and cost. Moreover, these methods provide estimates of fat free mass that is not skeletal muscle specific, and are influenced by changes in regional or total body water content. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has developed a novel technique using deuterium labeled creatine dilution for the estimation of muscle mass and has begun clinical evaluation of this muscle-measure in healthy young and older adults.