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Objective: Handgrip strength, a simple measure of muscle strength, has been reported as a predictor of both prediabetes and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and has been suggested for screening prediabetes and T2DM risk. This study examined the relationship of handgrip strength with prediabetes and T2DM among rural- and urban-dwelling adults in Malawi., Methods: This was a cross-sectional study nested in a follow-up study of prediabetic and prehypertensive individuals identified during an extensive noncommunicable disease survey in Malawi. A total of 261 participants (women: 64%) were recruited. Univariate and multivariate binary logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the association of prediabetes and T2DM with relative handgrip strength., Results: The mean (SD) age of the participants was 49.7 (13.6) years, and 54.0% were between the ages of 40 and 59 years. The mean (SD) absolute handgrip strength and relative handgrip strength were 28.8 (7.3) kg and 1.16 (0.40) kg/BMI, respectively, and the mean relative handgrip strength differed significantly (p < 0.001) by T2DM status. In unadjusted model, the odds ratio (OR) of prediabetes and T2DM per unit increase in relative handgrip strength was 0.12 [95% CI; 0.04-0.33]. The result remained significant after adjusting for age (continuous), sex, place of study, hypertension, dyslipidaemia and level of education (aOR [95% CI]; 0.19 [0.03-0.95])., Conclusions: The findings suggest that handgrip strength could be a relatively inexpensive, noninvasive measure for contributing to risk scores to identify high-risk individuals for screening diabetes in SSA., (© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Conventional risk factors for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes such as obesity do not completely explain the higher prevalence of prediabetes; therefore, research to investigate the role of other independent risk factors is required. A few cross-sectional studies have reported an association between muscle strength and prediabetes among normal-weight adults, but the longitudinal relationship of muscle strength with incident prediabetes among adults has not been reported. This prospective cohort study was conducted to investigate whether relative handgrip strength in adults predicted prediabetes incidence after 2 years of follow-up. The study was conducted in Ibaraki prefecture, Japan and recruited individuals without prediabetes and diabetes attending lifestyle related medical examinations between April 2016 and March 2017 (n = 2054). Individuals who came for the follow-up medical examinations between April 2018 and March 2019 were included in the analysis (n = 1075). One hundred sixty-nine individuals (15.7%) developed prediabetes after a mean follow-up of 24.2 months (SD = 1.9 months). Multivariable adjusted hazard ratios (aHR) of new prediabetes cases were calculated using Cox regression. Higher baseline relative handgrip strength predicted a lower risk (aHR [95% CI] = 0.38 [0.21-0.71] of prediabetes incidence among adults. Importantly, relative handgrip strength predicted new prediabetes cases among normal weight individuals (aHR [95% CI] = 0.39 [0.16-0.96]). The findings suggest that handgrip strength measurement is useful to identify individuals at high risk of newly diagnosed prediabetes, importantly, among normal weight individuals. The identified individuals may benefit from early intervention to reduce the risk of prediabetes., (© 2020 The Authors.)