Handshake Strength Better than Blood Pressure at Predicting Heart Health

by Monica Joshi

They say that a firm handshake can make or break an interview, but seems like it can make or break you heart too. A recent study published in the Lancet has shown that the strength of your handshake can predict if you're at a higher risk of a heart attack or stoke, supposedly.

The study out of McMaster University, led by Dr. Darryl Leong, followed just under 140, 000 adults aged 35 to 70 living in 17 different countries over a period of 4 years to test the correlation between grip strength and risk of heart attack or stroke. They were taking part in the institute's Prospective Urban-Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study. Compared to the standard systolic blood pressure tests, the study found that having a heart attack or stroke was higher in people who had weaker grips.

The study revealed that for every 11 pound decline in grip strength, there was a one in six increased risk of death while there was a 17 percent higher risk of death from either heart disease or stroke or even non-cardiovascular conditions. The correlation between grip strength and disease were not accounted for, however, by differences in age, sex, emotional level and physical activity. Interestingly, this held true for people across a range of countries, average incomes or socio-cultural settings.

Dr. Darryl Leong claimed that the study could have incredible use for predicting a person's health risk.

“Grip strength could be an easy and inexpensive test to assess an individual's risk of death and cardiovascular disease."

Since the research actually looked at grip strength using a hand dynomometer, which isn't the same thing as measuring the strength of a handshake. In addition, the research seems fairly intuitive as weaker people, including the elderly, are often at a higher risk of illness in comparison to stronger, younger, healthier individuals. This, however, doesn't show that people who have a weaker grip are already ill or if they are more likely to health problems and less likely to survive. It seems more likely that if their handshakes are weak they're more likely to be an evaluation of what happens to a person once they get ill as opposed to whether they get ill in the first place or not.

It also seems more likely that another avenue, perhaps an even better one, would be to look at whether strength or weight training could reduce the risk of death by cardiovascular disease. There might be other aspects of our environment and our daily lives that could, in fact, affect cardiovascular health.

While the researchers might claim that handshake strength is a better predictor of cardiovascular health compared to measuring blood pressure, it is undoubtedly true that the advantages of measuring blood pressure can aid doctors in determining other issues in the body. Doctor's diagnosis can then lead to preventative strategies.However, in countries where advanced tests and more in-depth diagnosis is expensive or simply not possible, a dynomometer test can still be useful.