Grip Strength across the Life Course: Normative Data from Twelve British Studies

Epidemiological studies have shown that weaker grip strength in later life is associated with disability, morbidity, and mortality. Grip strength is a key component of the sarcopenia and frailty phenotypes and yet it is unclear how individual measurements should be interpreted. Our objective was to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one Vol. 9; no. 12; p. e113637
Main Authors: Dodds, Richard M., Syddall, Holly E., Cooper, Rachel, Benzeval, Michaela, Deary, Ian J., Dennison, Elaine M., Der, Geoff, Gale, Catharine R., Inskip, Hazel M., Jagger, Carol, Kirkwood, Thomas B., Lawlor, Debbie A., Robinson, Sian M., Starr, John M., Steptoe, Andrew, Tilling, Kate, Kuh, Diana, Cooper, Cyrus, Sayer, Avan Aihie
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Public Library of Science 04.12.2014
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adolescents
Adult
Age
Age Factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging
Analysis
Biology and Life Sciences
Birth weight
Child
Child, Preschool
Cohort analysis
Cohort Studies
Cross-Sectional Studies
Databases, Factual
Disabled persons
Epidemiology
Female
Females
Gender
Grip strength
Hand Strength - physiology
Health aspects
Health care
Humans
Longitudinal studies
Male
Males
Measurement methods
Medicine and Health Sciences
Middle Aged
Morbidity
Mortality
Muscle Strength Dynamometer
Population studies
Position measurement
Prevalence
Public health
Sarcopenia
Sarcopenia - epidemiology
Sensitivity
Sensitivity analysis
Skewness
Studies
United Kingdom
Values
White People
Young Adult
United Kingdom
ISSN:1932-6203, 1932-6203
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Summary:Epidemiological studies have shown that weaker grip strength in later life is associated with disability, morbidity, and mortality. Grip strength is a key component of the sarcopenia and frailty phenotypes and yet it is unclear how individual measurements should be interpreted. Our objective was to produce cross-sectional centile values for grip strength across the life course. A secondary objective was to examine the impact of different aspects of measurement protocol. We combined 60,803 observations from 49,964 participants (26,687 female) of 12 general population studies in Great Britain. We produced centile curves for ages 4 to 90 and investigated the prevalence of weak grip, defined as strength at least 2.5 SDs below the gender-specific peak mean. We carried out a series of sensitivity analyses to assess the impact of dynamometer type and measurement position (seated or standing). Our results suggested three overall periods: an increase to peak in early adult life, maintenance through to midlife, and decline from midlife onwards. Males were on average stronger than females from adolescence onwards: males' peak median grip was 51 kg between ages 29 and 39, compared to 31 kg in females between ages 26 and 42. Weak grip strength, defined as strength at least 2.5 SDs below the gender-specific peak mean, increased sharply with age, reaching a prevalence of 23% in males and 27% in females by age 80. Sensitivity analyses suggested our findings were robust to differences in dynamometer type and measurement position. This is the first study to provide normative data for grip strength across the life course. These centile values have the potential to inform the clinical assessment of grip strength which is recognised as an important part of the identification of people with sarcopenia and frailty.
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Conceived and designed the experiments: RD HES RC DK CC AAS. Analyzed the data: RD. Wrote the paper: RD. Provided data: HES RC MB IJD EMD GD CRG HMI CJ TBK DAL SMR JMS AS KT DK CC AAS. Commented on drafts of the paper and approved the final version: HES RC MB IJD EMD GD CRG HMI CJ TBK DAL SMR JMS AS KT DK CC AAS.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0113637