Ask the Doctors: Grip strength’s an important tool for assessing health

Dear doctors: I am a 46-year-old woman and recently moved to be closer to my family. I have a new doctor, who surprised me by talking about grip strength. She said it’s an important measure of health. Can you explain?

Dear reader: Grip strength refers to the power generated by the muscles of the hand and the forearm in actions such as grabbing, pressing, crushing, rotating and pinching.

It has a direct role in your ability to hold, pull, lift or heft an object, and it dictates how heavy that object can be.

It also comes into play in a dynamic setting, with actions as varied as opening a jar, throwing a ball, pulling weeds, carrying a grocery bag, holding onto a handrail or hanging from a chinup bar.

The measure of grip strength includes the amount of pressure you can exert and the time you can sustain it.

Research shows grip strength is an important measure of overall health. It’s a reliable predictor of muscle strength, muscle mass, bone mineral density and nutritional status. With older adults, grip strength is an indicator of vitality that’s also used to predict a decline in physical and mental function.

Research links a decline in grip strength to a range of health issues, including heart disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, Type 2 diabetes and certain cancers. It also has been found to be a predictor of the likelihood of post-surgical complications, post-surgical recovery time and mortality.

All of that makes it an important biomarker for assessing health, particularly in older adults even though grip strength alone isn’t a symptom.

Hand exercises can improve grip strength, like squeezing a tennis ball, wringing out a wet towel, hanging from a pullup bar, lifting a weight with pinched fingers and carrying dumbbells as you walk. These work combinations of muscle groups and improve your crush, pinch and support grips.

Right-handed people tend to have weaker grip strength in their left hand. The reverse is true in those who are left-handed. Interestingly, this disparity turns out to be less pronounced in lefties.

Grip strength’s also an indicator of general strength and fitness.

Lifting weights, which can be an important component of staying fit, involves and improves grip strength. So do whole-body exercises such as running, yoga, swimming and cycling.

Even household tasks such as gardening, sweeping, cooking, running a vacuum or hand-washing dishes can aid grip strength.

Dr. Eve Glazier and Dr. Elizabeth Ko are UCLA Health internists.