To determine the association between sarcopenia and overactive bladder (OAB) in elderly diabetic patients using the Japanese version of SARC-F called SARC-F-J.

Cross-sectional study.

The study included 329 elderly diabetic patients (aged ≥65 years) who regularly visited the outpatient clinic at Community hospital in Japan.

The condition of OAB was evaluated using the OAM symptom score, which involves a self-administered questionnaire, and sarcopenia was evaluated using the self-administered SARC-F-J questionnaire comprising five items. The odds ratio for OAB due to sarcopenia was calculated using multiple logistic regression analysis, with OAB as the dependent variable and sarcopenia as the explanatory variable.

A total of 329 patients (186 males, 143 females) were included for analysis in the present study. Of these patients, 22.9% had sarcopenia and 18.7% had OAB. After adjusting the variables, the odds ratio for OAB due to sarcopenia was 4.46 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.14–17.36, P = 0.031) and 2.09 (95% CI, 0.52–8.26, P = 0.293) for males and females, respectively.

This study found that sarcopenia was significantly associated with OAB in elderly diabetic male patients based on SARC-F-J. Moreover, the possibility of the development of OAB should be considered during the medical examinations of elderly diabetic male patients with sarcopenia.