Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the largest single contributor to global mortality and accounts for more than 40% of deaths in China [1,2]. In China, there were estimated 93.8 million prevalent cases of CVD in 2016, twice more than that in 1990 (40.6 million) [3]. Reasons for the increased prevalence of CVDs are manifold, of which the two key drivers are population growth and aging. A potential contributor to the risk of CVDs that has been under-investigated as a characteristic of aging is muscle mass loss.
