ALB and sarcopenia: Figure 4 depicts the mediation path models for the imputed dataset1, while results from the other four datasets are presented in Supplementary Table S3. Our findings consistently demonstrated a significant direct effect of sarcopenia on MUI. Furthermore, we identified a positive indirect effect through metabolically unhealthy status, HbA1c, serum vitamin D, and albumin levels, with maximum mediation effects of 4.36, 6.58, 6.68, and 10.33%, respectively (Supplementary Table S3).