Celis-Morales CA, et al. - The link between disease specific incidence and mortality with grip strength and whether grip strength increases the predictive ability of an established office based risk score were examined in this prospective population based study. Findings suggested that higher grip strength was correlated with an array of health outcomes and enhanced prediction of an office based risk score.

Methods

• UK Biobank provided 502,293 members (54% women) aged 40-69 years.
• The outcomes in the study reported were incidence of and mortality from cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and cancer (all cancer, colorectal, lung, breast, and prostate) and all-cause mortality.

Results

• Thirteen thousand, three hundred twenty-two (2.7%) died over a mean of 7.1 (range 5.3-9.9) years follow-up.
• It was noted that in women and men, respectively, hazard ratios per 5 kg lower grip strength were higher (all at P < 0.05) for all-cause mortality (1.20, 95% confidence interval 1.17 to 1.23, and 1.16, 1.15 to 1.17) and cause specific mortality from cardiovascular disease (1.19, 1.13 to 1.25, and 1.22, 1.18 to 1.26), all respiratory disease (1.31, 1.22 to 1.40, and 1.24, 1.20 to 1.28), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (1.24, 1.05 to 1.47, and 1.19, 1.09 to 1.30), all cancer (1.17, 1.13 to 1.21, 1.10, 1.07 to 1.13), colorectal cancer (1.17, 1.04 to 1.32, and 1.18, 1.09 to 1.27), lung cancer (1.17, 1.07 to 1.27, and 1.08, 1.03 to 1.13), and breast cancer (1.24, 1.10 to 1.39) but not prostate cancer (1.05, 0.96 to 1.15).
• In the younger age group, several of these relations had higher hazard ratios.
• They reported that muscle weakness (defined as grip strength <26 kg for men and <16 kg for women) was related with a higher hazard for all health outcomes, except colon cancer in women and prostate cancer and lung cancer in both men and women.
• Data displayed that the addition of handgrip strength improved the prediction ability, based on C index change, of an office based risk score (age, sex, diabetes diagnosed, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, and smoking) for all cause (0.013) and cardiovascular mortality (0.012) and incidence of cardiovascular disease (0.009).