Could Grip Strength Predict All-Cause Mortality Risk?
A new study suggests that measurement of grip strength is a simple, inexpensive method to help predict risk of cardiovascular disease and death.
“Reduced muscular strength, as measured by grip strength, has been associated with an increased risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Grip strength is appealing as a simple, quick, and inexpensive means of stratifying an individual's risk of cardiovascular death,” said the study’s authors.
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“However, the prognostic value of grip strength with respect to the number and range of populations and confounders is unknown,” they explained.
For the Prospective Urban-Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study, 142,861 participants from 17 countries had their grip strength measured with a handgrip dynamometer between January 2003 and December 2009.
After 4 years of follow-up, 139,691 patients (2%) died.
Overall, the study showed that every 5-kg decrease in grip strength was associated with a 16% increase in all-cause mortality risk, 17% increase in the risk of cardiovascular mortality, 17% increase in risk of non-cardiovascular mortality, 7% increase in the risk of mortality from myocardial infarction, and a 9% increase in the risk of stroke-related mortality.
Researchers also noted that grip strength was a more efficient predictor of both cardiovascular and all-cause mortality than systolic blood pressure.
“Further research is needed to identify determinants of muscular strength and to test whether improvement in strength reduces mortality and cardiovascular disease,” they concluded.
The complete study is published in the May issue of the Lancet.
-Michelle Canales Butcher
Reference:
Leong DP, Teo KK, Rangarajan S, et al. Prognostic value of grip strength: findings from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study. Lancet. 2015 May [epub ahead of print] doi: dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62000-6.