How a person shakes your hand reveals a lot about their personality, but can it also reveal something about their heart`s health?
A large study conducted in 17 countries on nearly 14 000 people says that in fact, their handgrip can be a trustworthy tool in predicting someone`s chances of suffering a stroke or a heart attack in the nearby future.
The simple handshake could become a new and cheap method for doctors to see if their patient should also receive further investigation for a heart related problem.
Results of the study concluded that for every 10 pounds a person lost in their hand grip they experienced an increase of 16% chance of dying in the next four years, 17% of them had an increased risk of suffering a fatal heart attack or stroke and 7% more patients had an increased risk of suffering a non fatal myocardial infarction.
The study has taken into account all external factors such as job, education, age, physical shape as well as alcohol and tobacco use and the results remain the same regardless of these factors.
While the news of a cheap and fast detection method for those predisposed to cardiovascular episodes is good news, there is still a question of why this phenomenon happens.
Scientists believe that the muscle, being the large organ that they are, is a clear give away of cardiovascular issues and age-related problems that happen to a person`s body, but the mechanism on which this assumption is based upon has not been found.
The conclusion that loss of handgrip is a predictor of mortality was also found in a study conducted by the University of Maryland School of Medicine over ten years ago. The handgrip of a person is a clear mark of what goes on in a person`s muscles and body and although it has been linked to heart problems, weirdly enough, a loss in handgrip has never been seen as a sign that a person has weak muscles and will have a fall in a nearby future.
There are physicians who support the implementation of this method of study in their practice, but there are also those who claim that this is still an incomplete analysis, because we do not know the mechanism on which it relies and it should not be done as a routine.
Image Source: dailyperricone
