Association of handgrip strength asymmetry with prodromal and incident Parkinson's disease: A prospective cohort study
Min Cai, Xiao Chen, Sheng Zhuang, Yaqi Li, Fan Chen, Xiang GaoBackground
Asymmetry symptoms are well recognized in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, whether handgrip strength (HGS) asymmetry can prospectively predict incident PD remains unknown.
Objectives
To prospectively examine the association between HGS asymmetry and subsequent risk of incident PD .
Methods
Included were 497,100 participants without PD at baseline from the UK Biobank. HGS asymmetry index was calculated by dividing the absolute inter-hand difference in HGS by the average HGS of the two hands. The primary outcome was incident PD identified through hospital admissions, death registries, and self-reported data. As secondary outcome, prodromal PD was defined as the presence of ≥3 out of 8 prodromal PD features assessed through self-reported data, hospital admission records and primary care data. The associations were evaluated using Cox regression models. Several lag analyses were conducted to examine how many years in advance could HGS asymmetry predict incident PD.
Results
During a median follow-up of over 13 years, 2868 participants developed PD. HGS asymmetry (highest vs. lowest quartile) was associated with higher risk of developing PD (HR = 1.23; 95% CI: 1.10, 1.37) (
Conclusions
Higher HGS asymmetry was associated with a higher risk of incident PD, suggesting the potential of HGS asymmetry as an early indicator for PD.