Reduced muscle mass and strength are notable features of aging. Loss of muscle mass contributes to cardiometabolic health. Although many studies have focused on skeletal muscle mass, it remains unclear whether muscle strength is beneficial for cardiometabolic health. We aimed to investigate the association between handgrip strength and the risk of adverse cardiometabolic health in middle-aged and older adults in the Korean general population. The study participants included 7602 adults from the Korea National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (KNHANES). The odds ratio for adverse cardiometabolic health significantly and linearly decreased according to the category of handgrip strength adjusted for potential confounding factors (p-Value < 0.05). In the stratified models by sex we also observed significant associations between handgrip strength and cardiometabolic health in men (p-Value < 0.001), but not in women. Our findings suggest that maintaining higher handgrip strength may contribute to improved cardiometabolic health.
Keywords: KNHANES; Korean; cardiometabolic health; handgrip strength; muscle strength.