No association between grip strength and cardiovascular risk: The CoLaus population-based study

Decreased grip strength (GS) is predictive of cardiovascular (CV) disease but whether it improves CV risk prediction has not been evaluated. We assessed the predictive value of low GS on incident CV events and overall mortality taking into account CV risk equations in a population-based study from Switzerland.

2707 adults (54.8% women, age range 50-75years) were followed for a median time of 5.4years. GS was assessed using a hydraulic hand dynamometer. CV absolute risk at baseline was assessed using recalibrated SCORE, Framingham and PROCAM risk equations. Incident CV events were adjudicated by an independent committee.

160 deaths and 188 incident CV events occurred during follow-up. On bivariate analysis, low GS was associated with increased incident CV events: hazard ratio (HR) and (95% confidence interval) 1.76 (1.13-2.76), p<0.01 but not with overall mortality: HR=1.51 (0.94-2.45), p=0.09. The association between low GS and incident CV events disappeared after adjusting for baseline CV risk: HR=1.23 (0.79-1.94), p=0.36; 1.34 (0.86-2.10), p=0.20 and 1.47 (0.94-2.31), p=0.09 after adjusting for SCORE, Framingham and PROCAM scores, respectively.

Low GS is not predictive of incident CV events when taking into account CV absolute risk.