Abstract

Background: The incidence of hypertension is increasing worldwide, and handgrip strength (HGS) is an easily obtainable measure of physical health and muscle function. However, there is limited data available on the relationship between HGS and hypertension among community-dwelling persons in Japan. Therefore,we performed a population-based cohort study to examine whether relative HGS, defined by HGS/body mass index (BMI) ratio, was associated with hypertension.

Methods: A follow-up cohort study included 257 men aged 66 ± 9 years and 369 women aged 67 ± 8 years from a rural village (Nomura Cho, Seiyo City, in Ehime prefecture, Japan). Logistic regression models were used to evaluate the relative HGS as a significant predictor of hypertension.

Results: The median HGS was 36.4 (interquartile range: 31.3–40.7) kg in men and 21.9 (19.8–24.7) kg in women, while the mean HGS/BMI ratio was 1.62 ± 0.33 m² in men and 1.04 ± 0.21 m² in women. Of the participants, 120 men (46.7%) and 137 women (37.1%) had hypertension. The prevalence of hypertension was significantly decreased in relation to an increasing baseline relative HGS only among men. After adjustment for confounding factors, the respective odds ratios (95% confidence interval) of the three tertiles of the gender-specific relative HGS for hypertension were 1.00, 0.65 (0.35–1.22), and 0.27 (0.14–0.54) in men, and 1.00, 0.71 (0.42–1.19), and 0.56 (0.33–0.95) in women.

Conclusion: These results suggest that the relative HGS is significantly and negatively associated with an increased risk of hypertension in Japanese-community dwelling persons.