Research paper
Cruz-Jentoft AJ, Bahat G, Bauer J, et al. Sarcopenia: revised European consensus on definition and diagnosis. Age and Ageing. 2019 Jan;48(1):16-31. doi:10.1093/ageing/afy169. PMCID: PMC6322506.
Why we cite it
Provides the EWGSOP2 consensus clinical definition and diagnostic framework for sarcopenia — the age-related loss of muscle strength, quantity, and function, which the paper calls ”a contributor to the development of physical frailty”. As the sole citation backing kag01, this paper reports that sarcopenia ”is now formally recognised as a muscle disease with an ICD-10-MC Diagnosis Code that can be used to bill for care in some countries” (sic, MC; the code, M62.84, appears only in its reference list), that low muscle strength is its ”primary parameter”, and that it recommends a prevention strategy: maximise muscle early, maintain it in middle age, minimise loss later. (Corrected 2026-09-10: this paragraph said the paper establishes the disease status, and that it recommends ”prevention through resistance exercise and adequate protein”. Resistance does not occur in the paper. It says nutrition and exercise training ”seem to slow or reverse” muscle weakening, and that treatment options for sarcopenia and frailty overlap: ”provision of optimal protein intake, supplementation of vitamin D, and physical exercise”. The phrase came from `pmc-excerpts.txt`, a summary.)
Mode correction, 2026-09-02. This paragraph previously said prevention “is effective” and that the paper “grounds the companion’s message that daily choices … protect function in old age.” EWGSOP2 is a consensus definition-and-diagnosis paper. It does not measure a longitudinal protective effect, and it does not claim to. What it offers is a prevention strategy, in its own words: ”maximise muscle in youth and young adulthood, maintain muscle in middle age and minimise loss in older age.”
That is a recommendation about what to do, not a demonstrated outcome of doing it — and the difference is the whole distance between this is advised and this is shown to work. A page may say the consensus recommends it. It may not say preserving muscle in middle age protects function later, on this citation.
And the conversion happened here, in this section, which is worth a general warning. A Contribution is prose written to explain why a paper matters to this project. It is the one place in a record where a source’s mode can be quietly upgraded to fit the use we want — it reads as summary and functions as licence. `kag01` faithfully carried this paragraph’s framing, and companion 165 faithfully carried `kag01`’s. Three layers, each a fair paraphrase of the one above, and the endpoint asserted something never measured with nobody misreading anything at any single step.