Weak hand grip can be a sign of many dangerous diseases growing inside the body. The new study has revealed that weak grip strength can be related to the causes of several diseases like type 2 diabetes, stroke, chronic kidney disease, liver disease, cardiovascular disease, many types of cancer, sarcopenia and fragility fractures. This has come to light in a study conducted by doctors of the Apollo Hospital in Delhi. Hand grip strength has been proposed as a new vital sign of health.
According to the TOI report, the newly published study, 'Hand grip strength as a proposed new vital sign of health: a narrative review of evidences" was conducted by Dr Anoop Misra, executive chairman & director, of diabetes and endocrinology, Fortis C-Doc Hospital, and Dr Raju Vaishya, senior consultant, orthopaedic, joint replacement & arthroscopic surgery, Apollo Hospital.
Every person above 18 years of age can get a hand-gripping test done. As part of a preventive health checkup, in this test, it is found out whether your hand grip is weak due to sarcopenia i.e. muscles, strength and power. Muscle loss is linked to many diseases, it can be also related to heart-related diseases. Therefore, it is very important to get a grip test done.
How to do a hand grip test
However, research says that sarcopenia is quite common in India. In which the muscles become weak. In diabetes, not only fat or belly fat but also low gripping is important. The study states that Indian men with an average age of 44 years should have a hand grip of at least 27.5 kg. Whereas for women it is 18 kg. If the hand grip strength in men is less than 27.5 kg, it means that their muscles are weak. In such a situation you should be careful.
In such a situation, you should get medical checkups done like checking for bone strength, diabetes, blood pressure, heart problems and sometimes cancer. The four vital signs of health include temperature, pulse/heart rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate.
How to strengthen arm muscles
To test hand grip, you can get a hand-held dynamometer test done. If you find that your muscle strength is low then apart from walking, you should do some resistance exercises. You can do exercises with weights or resistance bands which will help in strengthening the muscles.
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