{"id":612410,"date":"2026-09-26T12:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T12:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/612410\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T12:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T12:46:08","slug":"grip-strength-predicts-degenerative-cervical-myelopathy-emj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/612410\/","title":{"rendered":"Grip Strength Predicts Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy-EMJ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DEGNERATIVE CERVICAL MYELOPATHY risk was associated with both grip strength and walking pace in a large prospective cohort study, with stronger grip and faster self-reported walking pace linked to lower rates of subsequent hospital record defined <a href=\"https:\/\/www.emjreviews.com\/neurology\/article\/adult-onset-idiopathic-cervical-dystonia-j190422\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">degenerative cervical myelopathy<\/a> (DCM).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Grip Strength Associated with Lower DCM Risk\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Researchers analysed data from 501,936 participants and assessed whether grip strength and walking pace were associated with incident hospital record defined DCM.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>During a median follow up of 16.43 years, 978 participants developed DCM, corresponding to an incidence of 12.31 cases per 100,000 person years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The primary complete case analysis included 489,344 participants and 923 events.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After adjustment for age, sex, ethnicity, smoking status, body mass index, alcohol intake, diabetes, and hypertension, each 5 kg increase in grip strength was associated with a lower hazard of DCM.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Analysis showed the relationship was approximately linear, with no evidence of nonlinearity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Walking Pace Reveals Graded Relationship\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.emjreviews.com\/general-healthcare\/news\/nhs-approves-first-walking-treatment-for-multiple-sclerosis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Walking pace<\/a> was self-reported as brisk, steady or average, or slow. Compared with brisk walking pace, steady or average pace was associated with a higher hazard of DCM.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Slow walking pace was associated with an even greater risk. An ordinal trend analysis supported a graded association between slower walking pace and increasing DCM risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The findings remained directionally consistent across multiple sensitivity analyses, including alternative outcome definitions, exclusion of the first 2 to 5 years of follow up, and competing risk analyses accounting for death.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>No significant interactions were observed according to sex or age group.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Implications for Future Diagnostic Research\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The researchers also explored whether adding grip strength and walking pace to a clinical model improved risk discrimination.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They concluded that grip strength and walking pace are non-specific functional markers associated with future degenerative cervical myelopathy risk.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While these measures may help inform future prospective diagnostic studies, they should not be used as standalone screening or triage tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Reference\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Yang S et al. Grip strength, walking pace, and hospital-record-defined incident degenerative cervical myelopathy: a UK Biobank cohort study. BMC Neurol. 2026;DOI:10.1186\/s12883-026-05305-6.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Featured image: Ricardo on Adobe Stock\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEGNERATIVE CERVICAL MYELOPATHY risk was associated with both grip strength and walking pace in a large prospective cohort&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-612410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}