High Relative Handgrip Strength Is Inversely Associated With The Incidence Of T2DM In Adults

Abstract

Several studies indicated that handgrip strength, which is a measuring tool for muscle strength, is associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). However, the results have been conflicting and few studies that used data from adults in Korea have been conducted. In addition, an increase in body weight usually precedes the development of DM and research an adjustment of handgrip strength to body weight is needed. PURPOSE: We investigated whether relative handgrip strength (RHS) is associated with development of type 2 DM in a subset of data with Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study. METHOD: We included 76,465 participants (25,870 male) aged between 40 and 79 years who had undergone a handgrip test from 39 community health examination centers located in 14 urban areas in Korea between 2004 and 2013. DM was defined as an fasting blood glucose ≥126 mg/dl or use of an oral hypoglycemic agent as diagnosed by a physician. The RHS was calculated by dividing maximal handgrip strength by body mass index and further grouped into age- and sex-specific tertiles. RESULT: During an average follow-up 5 years, 1,214 (1.7%) of the 69,725 participants with normoglycemia at baseline had newly developed DM. The hazard ratio and 95% confidence interval (CI) of incident DM in the lowest tertiles of RHS versus the middle and highest were 0.82 (95% CI 0.67 to 0.99) and 0.69 (95% CI 0.55 to 0.86) in male and 0.84 (95% CI 0.70 to 1.00) and 0.56 (95% CI 0.45 to 0.69) in female, respectively, after adjusting for potential confounders, including age, family income and education level, marry status, smoking, alcohol consumption, hypertension, baseline fasting blood glucose, family history of diabetes and physical activity. The participants with sustained high RHS had significant 50% lower risk of DM incidence (male, HR 0.50, 95% CI : 0.35-071, female HR 0.49, 95% CI : 0.36-067) compared with the those with the remained low RHS during 5 years of follow-up. CONCLUSION: The current finding suggests that RHS predicts incidence of type 2 DM independent of potential confounders in Korea middle-aged and older adults and maintaining of high RHS may be important for prevention of the development of the DM.