Quality of life associated with handgrip strength and sarcopenia: EpiFloripa Aging Study

Background: Quality of life (QoL) is an important measure, and it can be defined as the presence of control, autonomy, self-realization and pleasure. This study aims to verify the association between handgrip strength (HGS), sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity with quality of life (QoL) among community-dwelling older adults in southern Brazil. Methods: Cross-sectional analyses data of the EpiFloripa Aging cohort study were carried out. The participants were community-dwelling older adults (60 years and over). QoL was evaluated by CASP-16 Brazil instrument, with a score of zero, representing no QoL, to 48, total satisfaction. The TAKEI hand dynamometer verified the HGS. Sarcopenia was defined as appendicular skeletal muscle mass/body weight < 2 standard deviations below gender-specific means for young adults. Sarcopenic obesity was identified as the concomitant presence of obesity and sarcopenia. Multiple linear regression was performed to estimate the associations. Results: The analytical sample consisted of 584 older adults (652% females). In the adjusted analysis, at each increase of one kgf in HGS there was a 0.24 and 0.18 increase in the QoL score, for females and males, respectively. Sarcopenia was negatively associated with QoL in males, and sarcopenic obesity wasn't associated with QoL. Conclusion: QoL was positively associated with HGS for both sexes, and negatively associated with sarcopenia for males. Low HGS, as well as sarcopenia, lead to critical health losses. Interventions that minimize phenotypes related to these conditions are fundamental, but mainly, conditions as severe as these need to be early identified to reduce the impact on QoL.