Grip Strength, Muscle Mass, and Obesity

Grip strength assessment and bioimpedance analysis of skeletal muscle mass and whole-body fat mass were performed at the initial baseline assessment centre visit and used a Jamar J00105 hydraulic hand dynamometer and Tanita BC418MA body composition analyser (in conjunction with inputted height data, acquired from a Seca 202 stadiometer), respectively. For our grip strength analyses, we used the left-and-right-hand average contractile force, measured in kilograms (kg). We use a previously developed definition for probable sarcopenia [20 (link),21 (link)], and defined cases as those participants who had grip strength <27 kg of force (males) and <16 kg of force (females). Whole-body fat mass was used to calculate body fat percentage (whole-body fat mass divided by body weight and multiplied by 100) and the conventional cut-off points of ≥25% for males and ≥35% for females were used to determine obesity [24 (link)]. Analyses on probable sarcopenic obesity and non-obesity probable sarcopenia used participants without sarcopenia as the control group. Analysis of lean skeletal muscle mass used combined left-and-right-arm data.