188 research will be developed, which will ultimately lead to larger scale and more definitive studies. In this context, it is critical that an ongoing dialogue be initiated and sustained among investigators with an interest in age-dependent decline of muscle. Acknowledgements Dr. Fielding's contribution is based upon the work supported by the US Department of Agriculture, under agreement No. 58-1950-7-707. The authors of this manuscript certify that they comply with the ethical guidelines for authorship and publishing in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle [78]. Members of the International Working Group on Sarcopenia: Gabor Abellan Van Kan, France; Sandrine Andrieu, France; Stefan D. Anker, Germany; Patricia Anthony, Switzerland; Christian Asbrand, Germany; Mylène Aubertin-Leheudre, Canada; Sebastien Barbart- Artigas, Canada; Olivier Benichou, France; Cécile Bonhomme, France; Pascale Borensztein, France; Denis Breuillé, Switzerland; Sergio Castro Henriquez, Chile; Jesse M. Cedarbaum, USA; Matteo Cesari, France; Patricia Chatelain, France; Wm. Cameron Chumlea, USA; Richard V. Clark, USA; Capucine De Meynard, France; William J. Evans, USA; Gary Fanjiang, USA; Luigi Ferrucci, USA; Roger A. Fielding, USA; Philippe Garnier, France; Sophie Gillette-Guyonnet, France; Bret Goodpaster, USA; Marie-Françoise Gros, France; Luis Miguel F. Gutierrez Robledo, Mexico; Marc Hellerstein, USA; Kelly Krohn, USA; Maria Isaac, United Kingdom; Didier Laurent, Switzer- land; Menghua Luo, USA; Hélène Matheix-Fortunet, France; Inge Mohede, The Netherlands; John E. Morley, USA; Christine M’Rini, France; Ramon Navarro, France; Bruno Oesch, Switzerland; Reinhard Ommerborn, Germany; Marco Pahor, USA; Patrick Ritz, France; Yves Rolland, France; Daniel Rooks, USA; Ronnen Roubenoff, USA; Fariba Roughead, Switzerland; Seward Rutkove, USA; Cornel C. Sieber, Germany; Michèle Storrs-Malibat, France; Stephanie Studenski, USA; Yannis Tsouderos, France; Bruno Vellas, France; Sjors Verlaan, The Netherlands; Stephan Von Haehling, Germany; J. Willem Vrijbloed, Switzerland; Sander Wijers, The Netherlands; Mauro Zamboni, Italy. Conflicts of interest MC has received consultancy fees from Sanofi- Aventis and Pfizer; RAF is a consultant with Merck, Eli Lilly, Cytoki- netics, DMI, Kraft Foods, and Unilever; MH is a stockholder, chairmen of scientific advisory board, and consultant for KineMed, Inc.; SA is a consultant with Brahms, Vifor, Professional Dietetics, PsiOxus, and Takeda; receives research support from Vifor and BG Medicine; and has received fees for speaking at meetings from Brahms and Vifor; SR has equity in and receives consulting income from Convergence Med- ical Devices, Inc; WV is an employee and a shareholder of Neurotune AG; YR receives support from Lactalis, Lundbeck, Lilly, Nutricia, Servier, Cheisi, Ipsen, and Novartis; JMC is an employee and a shareholder of Cytokinetics, Inc; MZ has received a fee from Abbot for a conference; DL and RR are employed by Novartis; WJE is employed by GlaxoSmithKline; JEM is a consultant and a stokeholder of Mattern Pharmaceuticals and a consultant for Sanofi-Aventis; BV is a consultant and a member of the Advisory Board with Novartis, Servier, and Nestlè. 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