Study Reveals Building Muscle Strength Could Lower Type 2 Diabetes Risk by Over 40 Percent - Video

A new study has found that higher muscle strength was associated with over 40% lower risk of T2D, regardless of genetic susceptibility to T2D. The study highlights the importance of maintaining or improving muscle strength as a key strategy for preventing T2D. The findings were published in BMC Medicine.

The research utilised data of 141,848 white British individuals without baseline T2D from the UK Biobank, an ongoing prospective cohort of over 500,000 UK adults which includes extensive genotype and phenotype information. Muscle strength was assessed in the form of grip strength. Genetic risk of T2D was estimated based on 138 known genetic variants for T2D.

The participants were followed up for more than seven years. During the follow-up period, 4,743 new T2D cases were identified. The findings indicated that, compared with low muscle strength, individuals with high muscle strength were associated with a 44% lower relative risk of developing T2D, even after taking into account T2D genetic risk as well as other risk factors. Moreover, the research team observed evidence of an interaction between muscle strength and genetic susceptibility to T2D, suggesting that muscle strength may play a role in modifying the impact of genetic risk to T2D onset. The findings further revealed that individuals at high genetic risk of T2D but with high muscle strength could have a lower absolute risk of T2D compared with those at low or medium genetic risk but with low muscle strength.

'The findings emphasise the crucial role of maintaining or enhancing muscle strength as a key strategy for preventing T2D in middle-aged and older adults, regardless of their genetic risk levels and including those at high genetic risk. We believe that these results offer novel insights into the significant impact of higher muscle strength on metabolic health,' said Dr Wang Mengyao, from the School of Public Health at HKUMed, the first author of this study.

Reference: https://www.hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/28229.html