[Grip strength and high blood pressure: a case-control study].

Introduction: Introduction: Low hand grip strength (HGS) is one of the criteria for diagnosing frailty and sarcopenia, it is associated with the risk of metabolic and mental diseases; Studies have shown that in patients with arterial hypertension (BP), low HGS represents a risk of incidence of cardiovascular disease and mortality, in addition to mortality from other causes; however, there are still no conclusive studies regarding the factors that determine HGS in BP.

Objective: Identify the factors that influence low HGS in patients with BP.

Material and methods: Cross-sectional, observational, analytical case-control study. 100 patients with a diagnosis and treatment of HTN were included, and 100 controls matched by age and sex. Demographic data, self-report of physical activity, weight, height, body composition, and HGS were obtained. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square, were performed to look for differences in means, Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis, and Games-Howell post-hoc analysis. In all tests, a 95% confidence interval (95%CI) was considered.

Results: The average age of the sample was 47.40 ± 0.54; The results of body composition between the study groups did not show statistically significant differences; However, when looking for difference in means between tertiles of relative strength for the elements of body composition, different factors were found that influence HGS.

Conclusions: Body composition is what determines HGS in patients between 30 and 60 years of age, however in patients with BP it is visceral fat that is responsible for low HGS.