Your vital signs—heart rate, blood pressure, respiration rate, oxygen saturation, and temperature—are evaluated at your annual checkup with your primary care physician. Additionally, your height, weight, and BMI will all be recorded (body mass index).
However, a recent study adds to the body of knowledge suggesting that physicians should additionally evaluate their patients’ grip strength.
Continue reading to discover more about this crucial but little-known measure of your general health.
What is grip power?
The forearm muscles, on a biomechanical level, produce grip strength. It gauges how stable and securely you can hold onto objects that are weighty. Whether we realise it or not, every day we use our grip strength for things like taking heavy pots off the burner, lugging groceries inside from the car, and opening jars.
A person’s grip strength is a great indicator of their overall muscle strength. A hand dynamometer is used to measure it since it tracks how much pressure is required to squeeze two handles together.
The cutoffs for grip strength that older adults required to accomplish heavy chores were found to be 18.5 kg for women and 28.5 kg for men, respectively.
Research connects sickness with a weak grasp
A significant international study of more than 140,000 adults aged 35 to 70 indicated that over a 4-year period, people with an 11-pound reduction in grip strength had a 17% increased risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke. Although it is a substantial correlation, this is not an instance of causality. It follows that those with larger muscle mass tend to have a stronger grip. And people who have larger muscle mass relative to their weight typically exercise more and are in better physical condition.
Additionally discovered to be related to mental health is grip strength. Low grip strength and depression have been linked, according to a study of 27,000 persons in India over the age of 60. Researchers discovered a statistically substantial odds ratio between having a weak grip and being depressed.
Information on your health and grip strength is currently available.
The most recent research on grip strength, which was released in November 2022, stands out for what it adds to the body of knowledge already known.
1275 persons 51 years of age and older were the subject of this investigation. They obtained blood samples, used a handheld dynamometer to measure their grip strength, and calculated their epigenetic ages.
Researchers discovered that blood samples from people with weak grips had DNA that was deteriorating more quickly. Those with stronger grips aged more slowly, which is another way to look at this.
