Association between grip strength and cardiovascular risk among primary school children from three African countries

Background: The prevalence of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), the number one cause of death globally, is rising with the change in the population’s demographics. As part of physical fitness, muscular fitness (MF) is gaining more importance in the relation to cardiovascular risk factors (CVRF). Many studies have investigated the association of physical fitness and cardiovascular risk (CVR) in adults. The aim of this paper is to investigate the association between grip strength (GS) and CVR in African primary school children.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study baseline data from the KaziAfya-study was used. The data collection took place in 2018 in South Africa, the Ivory Coast and Tanzania. A total of 3584 children, aged 6 to 12 years, were included in the study. Data analyses were performed using the programmes MPLUS, for mixed linear regressions and SPSS, for descriptive statistics and correlations.
Results: Girls demonstrated higher values in variables related to body fat (BF) than boys (r=-.378, p<.01), who in turn displayed higher values in variables related to muscle mass (MM) (r=.088, p<.01). CVR was negatively associated with sex (r=-.216, p<.01) in all countries and positively associated with body mass index (BMI) (r=.361, p<.01) in South Africa and Tanzania. Further CVR was negatively associated with GS (r=-.236, p<.01) in Tanzanian children.
Conclusions: The findings of this study show a correlation between GS and MM. Further lower GS was found to be associated with higher CVRF levels in primary school children in Tanzania. To more accurately determine the association between GS and CVR in primary school children future studies are necessary.