Research Paper Volume 11, Issue 13 pp 4547—4560
Lower hand grip strength in older adults with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a nationwide population-based study
- 1 Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- 2 Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Inha University Hospital, Inha University School of Medicine, Incheon, Republic of Korea
- 3 Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA 30912, USA
- 4 Department of Medicine, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA 30912, USA
Received: May 4, 2019 Accepted: June 25, 2019 Published: July 7, 2019
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102068How to Cite
Copyright: Kim et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Although both liver and muscle are metabolically active endocrine organs, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and sarcopenia may share common pathogenic determinants, there have been few clinical studies of the relationship between NAFLD and muscle strength, especially in the elderly. We conducted a nationally representative population-based, cross-sectional study using data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which involved 1,897 men aged ≥50 years and 2,206 postmenopausal women. NAFLD was defined using the hepatic steatosis index (HSI) and low muscle strength was defined using the Korea-specific cut-off point of hand grip strength (HGS). Men and women with NAFLD had 7.3% and 7.9% lower HGS than controls, respectively. The odds ratios for low muscle strength in the presence of NAFLD were 2.51 in men and 2.34 in women. HSI inversely correlated with HGS in both men and women. Consistently, compared with men and women in the lowest HSI quartile, those in the highest quartile had 7.6% and 12.4% lower HGS, respectively, and were 5.63- and 3.58-times more likely to have low muscle strength, respectively. These results provide the first clinical evidence that NAFLD can be associated with muscular impairment in older adults, as demonstrated by lower muscle strength.