Vascular Function and Handgrip Strength in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients

Abstract

Objective. To examine the relationship of handgrip strength with forearm blood flow (BF) and vascular resistance (VR) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. Methods. Forearm BF at rest (RBF) and after upper arm occlusion (RHBF), and handgrip strength were examined in 78 individuals (RA = 42 and controls (CT) = 36). Subsequently, VR at rest (RVR) and after occlusion (RHVR) were calculated. Results. The patients' RBF (P = 0.02) and RHBF (P = 0.0001) were less, whereas RVR (P = 0.002) and RHVR (P = 0.0001) were greater as compared to the CTs. Similarly, handgrip strength was lower in the RAs (P = 0.0001). Finally, handgrip strength was directly associated with RBF (r = 0.43; P = 0.0001), and RHBF (r = 0.5; P = 0.0001), and inversely related to RVR (r = −0.3; P = 0.009) and RHVR (r = −0.3; P = 0.007). Conclusion. The present study uniquely identifies an association between regional measures of forearm blood flow and handgrip strength in patients and healthy control. In addition, this study confirms the presence of vascular and muscle dysfunction in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, as evidenced by lower forearm blood flow indices, at rest and following occlusion, and lower handgrip strength as compared to healthy individuals.

Hand Grip Strength in Elderly Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients

“…In addition, using a multiple linear regression analysis, we demonstrated that only disease duration was associated with HGS in the elderly population with RA. Our finding of no significant difference in HGS for both groups is clearly inconsistent with other studies which reported that the participants with RA had significantly lower HGS than healthy controls (5,20). Firstly, it has been shown that HGS can be affected by functional ability, sleep quality, anxiety and depression, cognitive impairment, fatigue; therefore, we also evaluated the groups in terms of these factors to prevent bias and found no significant difference (3,21).…”

Possible Modulation of Vascular Function Measures in Rheumatoid Arthritis by Homocysteine

“…The reduced occlusion blood pressure and increased occlusion vascular resistance in the patients are consistent with previous studies [ 30 – 33 ]. Arosio et al, for example, reported a -29% in peak blood flow (p = 0.05) in rheumatoid arthritis [ 31 ].…”

Hand strength in patients with RA correlates strongly with function but not with activity of disease

“…We believe that our study provides a relevant reference for the measurement of hand strength in patients with RA, as the sample size was larger compared with the studies available in the literature [37,38,41,45,47]. In addition, we used a control group composed of individuals with sociocultural profiles similar to those of the RA patients and matched per sex, age, and BMI; therefore, both the internal and external validity are satisfactory.…”

“…Although the analyzed studies had excluded individuals with diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and testosterone and/or growth hormone deficiencies, the abovementioned value is similar to the one we found in the present study, in which patients with such conditions were not excluded. Alomari et al [41] found a 30% reduction in HS among patients with RA compared with healthy individuals recruited from the local community without ischemia, systemic arterial hypertension, angina, diabetes mellitus, anemia, dyslipidemia, kidney failure, obesity, or higher cardiovascular risk and who were nonsmokers. Even without excluding participants with any of these conditions, in our study, we found a similar difference between patients and controls.…”