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Exercise & fitness

Grip strength

DEGriffkraft

Grip strength is the maximal force you generate when you squeeze a device called a dynamometer. It is a cheap, simple proxy for your whole-body muscular function. In the 17-country PURE cohort (Leong et al., Lancet 2015; about 140,000 adults), each 5 kg drop in grip strength predicted roughly a 16% higher all-cause death risk. That actually beat systolic blood pressure as a mortality predictor. Grip strength correlates with your neuromuscular health, nutritional status, and recovery capacity. That makes it one of the most validated biomarkers of biological aging.

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Check your grip strength percentileEnter age, sex and your dynamometer reading to see where the value sits in the German norm table (Steiber 2016).

Sources

  1. Leong DP, Teo KK, Rangarajan S, Lopez-Jaramillo P, Avezum A Jr, Orlandini A, Seron P, Ahmed SH, Rosengren A, Kelishadi R, Rahman O, Swaminathan S, Iqbal R, Gupta R, Lear SA, Oguz A, Yusoff K, Zatonska K, Chifamba J, Igumbor E, Mohan V, Anjana RM, Gu H, Li W, Yusuf S. (2015). Prognostic value of grip strength: findings from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study. *Lancet*doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62000-6

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