Background: Muscle mass evaluation methods are often expensive and therefore limited in their daily use in clinical practice. In this study, we investigated the relationship between hand grip strength (HGS) and other parameters of body measurements with urine creatinine, especially to investigate whether HGS measurement is an indicator of muscle metabolism.
Methods: In total, 310 relatively healthy people (mean age 47.8 + 9.6; 161 people or 51.9% of the total population were men) who were undergoing preventive examinations were included in this study and given a container to collect 24-h urine, and the amount of creatinine in the urine was determined by a kinetic test without deproteinization according to the Jaffe method. A digital dynamometer (Takei Hand Grip Dynamometer, Japan) was used in the measurement of HGS.
Results: There was a significant difference in 24-h urine creatinine (24 hCER) between the sexes, with a mean of 1382.9 mg/24 h in men and 960.3 mg/24 h in women. According to the correlation analysis, the amount of urine creatinine was related to age (r = -0.307, p < 0.001 in men, r = -0.309, p < 0.001 in women), and HGS (r = 0.207, p = 0.011 in men, r = 0.273, p = 0.002 in women) was significant for either sex. However, other parameters of body measurements, such as girth, forearm circumference, and muscle mass measured by bioelectrical impedance, were not related to urine 24 hCER. A correlation between HGS and 24 hCER was observed in age groups.
Conclusions: We found that HGS is a potential marker in muscle metabolism assessment that is proven through 24 hCER. In addition, therefore, we suggest using the HGS measure in clinical practice to evaluate muscle function and well-being.
Keywords: creatinine excretion; grip strength; muscle strength; sarcopenia.