Risk of subsequent gastrointestinal disease assessed by skeletal muscle strength and mass in a prospective cohort study

Summary: Skeletal muscle may mutually interact with gastrointestinal disease through metabolic homeostasis and nutritional status and therefore may be a marker for early risk detection. We conducted a prospective cohort analysis including 393,606 participants (mean age 56.0 years, 53.9% female) from the UK Biobank. The exposures were grip strength and skeletal muscle mass (SMM). The primary outcomes were 24 incident gastrointestinal diseases. During a mean follow-up of 12.1 years, we found that one sex-specific SD increase in grip strength and SMM were associated with reduced risk of 16 and 19 gastrointestinal diseases, respectively. For grip strength, the HRs ranged from 0.94 (for ulcerative colitis) to 0.80 (for liver cancers). For SMM, the HRs ranged from 0.92 (for colorectal cancer) to 0.51 (for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). Our finding suggested that grip strength and SMM might be significant indicators for gastrointestinal diseases risk screen.