Sarcopenia affects millions of aging adults. Age-related loss of muscle mass and strength not only robs elderly people of the ability to perform even the most basic tasks of daily living, but also greatly increases their risk of suffering devastating injuries and even death from sudden falls and other accidents. Dr. Chris Fry, UTMB assistant professor, is first author of the study. Fry says that "the loss of muscle mass and function seen in our study was unaffected by the depletion of stem cells in our model. Our results challenge years of correlative findings that emphasized the role of stem cells during aging and will hopefully spur scientists into pursuing new lines of research aimed at attenuating sarcopenia.”