Abstract
Despite the potential detrimental effects of systemic inflammation on muscle mass, which is mainly observed in patients with pathologic diseases, its role in muscle strength, especially in a healthy general population reflecting subclinical low-grade inflammation, is unclear. This is a nationally representative population-based, cross-sectional study from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which enrolled 1,036 men aged ≥50 years and 1,080 postmenopausal women. After adjustment for confounders, serum high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) level was inversely associated with hand grip strength (HGS) in men. Consistently, compared with men in the lowest serum hsCRP quartile, those in the highest quartile showed a significant lower HGS, with a linear decrease of HGS across increasing serum hsCRP quartiles. Men with low muscle strength had 74.2% higher serum hsCRP than those without, and each standard deviation increment in serum hsCRP was associated with a multivariate-adjusted odds ratio of 1.35 for the risk of low muscle strength in men. However, these associations were not statistically significant in women. These findings provide clinical evidence that chronic subclinical low-grade inflammation may contribute to the deterioration of muscle strength seen with aging, especially in men.
Highlights
Hand grip strength (HGS) is an accessible and convenient indicator of overall muscle strength, with good test-retest reliability, validity, and responsiveness [1, 2]
Participants with higher high-sensitivity Creactive protein (hsCRP) level were older and had higher weight, body mass index (BMI), serum total cholesterol, and systolic blood pressure (BP) than those with lower hsCRP level, whereas there were no differences in height, smoking and drinking habits, resistance exercise, fasting plasma glucose, and diastolic BP between two groups
Before and after adjustment for confounders including age, BMI, smoking and drinking habits, resistance exercise, fasting plasma glucose, serum total cholesterol, and systolic BP, serum hsCRP level was inversely associated with HGS in men
Summary
Hand grip strength (HGS) is an accessible and convenient indicator of overall muscle strength, with good test-retest reliability, validity, and responsiveness [1, 2]. Inflammatory cytokines can modulate signaling pathways involved in muscle homeostasis, leading to an imbalance between protein synthesis and proteolysis [20, 21] In view of these findings, several epidemiological studies have been performed to assess the role of high-sensitivity Creactive protein (hsCRP), an indicator of systemic inflammation, as a risk marker for sarcopenia. Most of these studies have focused only on muscle mass and been performed in patients with existing pathologic conditions, such as cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, end-stage renal disease, and ulcerative colitis [22,23,24,25,26]. With the aim to resolve these issues, the present study evaluated serum hsCRP concentration in relation to HGS in communitydwelling healthy older adults
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