Background: As the aging population continues to increase worldwide, the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and muscular dystrophy/sarcopenia in the elderly has escalated significantly. Cardiovascular diseases elevate the risk of muscular atrophy/sarcopenia, which results in increased disability and mortality of patients.This study analyzed the current available literature related to the relationship between cardiovascular diseases and muscular atrophy/sarcopenia in the aging population.Methods: The Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) database was searched for related literature published between 1900 and March 14, 2021. The subject search was performed using the search terms "muscular atrophy" and "sarcopenia". The search formula was "muscular atrophy OR sarcopenia". The search scope was limited to "cardiovascular diseases OR cardiac & cardiovascular systems". All search results and cited references were exported in plain text format and Citespace software was used to analyze the publications in terms of year of publication, country and institution, journal of publication, authors, and keywords.Results: A total of 1,004 related research documents were obtained, with a citation frequency of 26,705 times. The top five countries for the highest number of published documents were the United States, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Italy. The top five countries involved in research cooperation were the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany, however, overall, there was little cooperation between countries, institutions, and authors. A number of researchers from Germany published the most documents. The author with the most cited publication was Cruz-Jentoft et al. from Spain, which deserves special attention. Professional journals of in the field of geriatrics play a significant role in this research topic.Analysis of the keywords showed that current researchers are mainly concerned with the associated risk of death.
Conclusions:The relationship between muscular atrophy/sarcopenia and cardiovascular diseases is currently a hot topic of research in geriatrics and cardiovascular disease, and further studies examining the mechanisms involved and potential prevention strategies are warranted.