The association of grip strength from midlife onwards with all-cause and cause-specific mortality over 17 years of follow-up in the Tromsø Study

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The association of grip strength from midlife onwards with all-cause and cause-specific mortality over 17 years of follow-up in the Tromsø Study

Strand, BH; Cooper, R; Bergland, A; Jørgensen, L; Schirmer, H; Skirbekk, V; Emaus, N; (2016) The association of grip strength from midlife onwards with all-cause and cause-specific mortality over 17 years of follow-up in the Tromsø Study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 10.1136/jech-2015-206776. Green open access

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Grip strength has consistently been found to predict all-cause mortality rates. However, few studies have examined cause-specific mortality or tested age differences in these associations. METHODS: In 1994, grip strength was measured in the population-based Tromsø Study, covering the ages 50-80 years (N=6850). Grip strength was categorised into fifths, and as z-scores. In this cohort study, models with all-cause mortality and deaths from specific causes as the outcome were performed, stratified by sex and age using Cox regression, adjusting for lifestyle-related and health-related factors. RESULTS: During 17 years of follow-up, 2338 participants died. A 1 SD reduction in grip strength was associated with HR=1.17 (95% CI 1.12 to 1.22) for all-cause mortality in a model adjusted for age, gender and body size. This association was similar across all age groups, in men and women, and robust to adjustment for a range of lifestyle-related and health-related factors. Results for deaths due to cardiovascular disease (CVD), respiratory diseases and external causes resembled those for all-cause mortality, while for cancer, the association was much weaker and not significant after adjustment for lifestyle-related and health-related factors. CONCLUSIONS: Weaker grip strength was associated with increased all-cause mortality rates, with similar effects on deaths due to CVD, respiratory disease and external causes, while a much weaker association was observed for cancer-related deaths. These associations were similar in both genders and across age groups, which supports the hypothesis that grip strength might be a biomarker of ageing over the lifespan.

Type:	Article
Title:	The association of grip strength from midlife onwards with all-cause and cause-specific mortality over 17 years of follow-up in the Tromsø Study
Open access status:	An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI:	10.1136/jech-2015-206776
Publisher version:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jech-2015-206776
Language:	English
Additional information:	This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywords:	Epidemiology of ageing, LONGITUDINAL STUDIES, MORTALITY, PHYSICAL FUNCTION
UCL classification:	UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Cardiovascular Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Cardiovascular Science > Population Science and Experimental Medicine UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Cardiovascular Science > Population Science and Experimental Medicine > MRC Unit for Lifelong Hlth and Ageing
URI:	https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1497360