{"id":870781,"date":"2026-10-04T19:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T19:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/870781\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T19:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T19:32:11","slug":"your-grip-strength-is-an-important-vital-sign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/870781\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Grip Strength Is an Important Vital Sign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        Your handshake may say more about your health than you realize. Doctors are increasingly eyeing grip strength as a quick, cheap way to flag broader problems. Indeed, University of Michigan Medical School professor Mark Peterson considers it better at predicting cardiovascular disease than blood pressure. Measured with a small device called a handgrip dynamometer that you squeeze for a few seconds, grip strength offers a snapshot of overall muscle power, he explains to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/health\/wellness\/what-grip-strength-can-tell-you-about-your-health-abed3d8f?mod=djem10point\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wall Street Journal<\/a>. For 50-year-old men, the median grip strength is about 100 pounds; for women, it&#8217;s 64 pounds.&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        &#8220;Why it&#8217;s useful isn&#8217;t because we care anything about muscles in the forearm,&#8221; says Peterson. &#8220;It&#8217;s highly associated with all muscle strength or weakness. If somebody is very weak in their grip, they are at very high risk for whole body frailty and weakness.&#8221; Low grip scores have also been linked to higher risks of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, stroke, and dementia. Experts stress that chasing a stronger squeeze alone won&#8217;t extend your life. Instead, they recommend full-body strength training\u2014with grip strength as one more useful vital sign. Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/health\/wellness\/what-grip-strength-can-tell-you-about-your-health-abed3d8f?mod=djem10point\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; Your handshake may say more about your health than you realize. Doctors are increasingly eyeing grip strength&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7199,97,24328,53063,3629],"class_list":["post-870781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-cardiovascular-disease","tag-health","tag-muscle-mass","tag-muscle-strength","tag-type-2-diabetes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}