Association of handgrip strength with hypertension among middle-aged and elderly people in Southern China: A cross-sectional study

ABSTRACT

Backgroud and Purpose: Hypertension has been regarded as one of the most common chronic diseases reported in different studies, and handgrip strength is a good indicatorof anindividual’s overall health. However, few studies have concentrated on investigating the relationship between hypertension and handgrip strength, especially for the middle-aged and elderly population in the community. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the association of handgrip strength with the risk of hypertension.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a multi-instrument questionnaire. A total of 1152 participants aged 45 and older were included in this study. Handgrip strength, social-demographiccharacteristics, behavioral lifestyle and health-related variables were collected. Binary logistic regression was employed to analyse the relationship.

Results: Handgrip strength was positively related to the risk of hypertension. Binary logistic regression models revealed that the increase of handgrip strength was significantly associated with the reduction of hypertension risk in female after adjusting forsocial-demographic characteristics, behavioral lifestyle and health-related variables (OR [95%CI] =0.265 [0.089-0.787]). In addition, after stratifying by age groups, the significant association was still existing in 60-74 years and ≥75 years of female groups, respectively(OR [95%CI] =0.158 [0.032-0.779]; (OR [95%CI] =0.009 [0.000-0.409]). No significant associations were observed in male after adjusting variables.

Conclusion: stronger handgrip strength was association with the lower risk ofhypertension for the elderly female population.

Abbreviations: BMI: body mass index; DBP: diastolic blood pressure; HC: hip circumference; SBP, systolic blood pressure; WC: waist circumference; WHC: hip–waist relation.

KEYWORDS:

• Handgrip strength
• hypertension
• middle-aged and elderly people
• cross-sectional study

Competing interests

The authors declare no conflict of interests. We confirm that all author details are correct and that all authors have agreed to authorship and order of authorship for this manuscript.

Author Contributions

XiaoXiao Zhang collected the data, analyzed the data and wrote the draft manuscript. LingLing.Huang, Xin Peng, YiXian Xie, Xin-Yu Bao, and Jun-Xuan Huang performed data analysis and edited the manuscript. Pei-Xi Wang designed and supervised the study, performed data analysis, and critically reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the data and approved the version for submission.