Demographic Factors and Total Muscle Mass are Associated with Handgrip Strength in Selected Indonesian Adults

Muscle strength has important implications for health and can be used to predict the progression of disease linked to muscular function. Handgrip strength (HGS) is a measurement method that can be used to assess muscle strength. The association between demographic factors, anthropometry, lifestyle, and ethnicity on HGS is not yet clear. This study aims to evaluate various demographic determinants of HGS. We performed a cross-sectional study on 66 employees aged 19 to 50, who worked in a private institution in West Jakarta, Indonesia. The chi-square test was used to determine the differences in HGS based on categorizations of age, sex, body mass index (BMI), physical exercise, and muscle mass. We enrolled 51.5% male and 48.5% female subjects. A considerable number of subjects were obese (45.5%) and had low muscle mass (47.0%) and perform physical exercises regularly (65.2%). The distribution of HGS is 39.4% weak, 33.3% normal, and 27.3% strong. The strongest HGS was observed in the 31 – 40 age group, in men, and in those who claim to regularly exercise. In conclusion, HGS had a significant association with age (p=0.021), sex (p=0.006), physical exercise (p=0.004), and muscle mass (p=0.042), but not with BMI (p=0.728).