Muscle strength is a reliable indicator of a person’s risk of death.
- The results of the test, which measures muscle strength, depend on the patient’s position (standing or sitting) during the test.
- “If a person improves their muscle strength through exercise, the impact on their general health will be nil or very small”, according to Nadia Steiber.
Carrying groceries, climbing stairs, opening glass containers… During these gestures, we use our muscular strength, namely the ability of muscles to contract intensely to allow a joint to move a load or fight against resistance. According to researchers from the University of Vienna in Austria, low muscle strength can be a sign of health problems. To reach this conclusion, they conducted work published in the journal BMJ Open.
“A powerful predictor of mortality”
“Muscle strength is a powerful predictor of mortality that can be quickly and inexpensively assessed by measuring handgrip strength. What is missing for clinical practice are empirically meaningful thresholds that apply to the general population and which take into account the correlation of muscle strength with gender and height as well as the decline in muscle strength during the normal aging process”, can we read in the study.
As part of this research, scientists tried to determine at what level of muscle strength a doctor should ask a patient to perform additional tests. For the purposes of the work, they recruited 8,156 women and men aged 50 to 80. In general, muscle strength is measured by squeezing a dynamometer with one hand. In this study, the team asked participants to complete two trials with each hand. The best trial was used for measurement. Next, the team compared the volunteers’ muscle strength to that of people of the same age, gender and height.
A “screening tool”
According to the results, slightly below average muscle strength signals health problems, leading to early death. Greater muscle strength than adults of the same age, gender, and height reduced the risk of death. “Our results clearly show that muscle strength is a very accurate and sensitive measure of underlying health conditions. We therefore suggest that it be used as a screening tool in medical practice,” said Nadia Steiber, author of the research, in a statement.
