**5. Conclusions**

In conclusion, this study demonstrated that f(HMA), a marker for the redox state of HSA, correlated with the severity of LS in elderly people. Thus, we sugges<sup>t</sup> that f(HMA) could be a novel biomarker of LS.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, S.I. (Sadayuki Ito); methodology, S.I. (Sadayuki Ito); software, R.F.; validation, R.F., H.Y., Y.A., J.U., T.K., K.S.; formal analysis, S.I. (Sadayuki Ito); investigation, S.I. (Sadayuki Ito), H.N., K.A., K.K., T.S., S.I. (Shinya Ishizuka), M.M., S.K., T.I., H.K., R.F., H.Y., Y.A., J.U., T.K., K.S., Y.H. and S.I. (Shiro Imagama); resources, S.I. (Sadayuki Ito), H.N., K.A., K.K., T.S., S.I. (Shinya Ishizuka), M.M., S.K., T.I., H.K., R.F., H.Y., Y.A., J.U., T.K., K.S., Y.H. and S.I. (Shiro Imagama); data curation, S.I. (Sadayuki Ito); writing—original draft preparation, S.I. (Sadayuki Ito); writing—review and editing, S.I. (Sadayuki Ito) and H.N.; supervision, S.I. (Shiro Imagama); project administration, H.N. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research did not receive any specific gran<sup>t</sup> from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The research protocol was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee and the University's Institutional Review Board (No. 2014-0207). All participants gave written informed consent prior to participation. The research procedure was carried out in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

**Informed Consent Statement:** All participants gave written informed consent prior to participation.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data of health checkups used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

**Acknowledgments:** We are grateful to the staff of the Comprehensive Health Care Program held in Yakumo, Hokkaido, and Aya Henmi and Hiroko Ino of Nagoya University for their assistance throughout this study.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
