Welcome, my name is Dr. Warrick Bishop. I'm a cardiologist, an author and a keynote speaker. I'm CEO of the Healthy Heart Network. I'm all about trying to help people live as well as possible for as long as possible. Heart disease is huge in Australia. Every 20 minutes someone suffers a heart attack. Most of these could probably have been avoided if only we knew what to do. This podcast is all about helping you understand blood pressure, weight, cholesterol for better health. If you enjoy this podcast, I would be honored for a five-star review. You can share it with your family and friends. It may well save someone you love. Hi, my name is Dr. Rick Bishop and welcome to my podcast and videocast station. I really do appreciate you tuning in today. One of the things I'd like to cover is... Looking at grip strength as a vital sign. Well, your dad may have always told you to shake with a firm handshake. And certainly business leaders and some power play people in the business field would shake your hand so hard your whole body shakes with it. Well, it turns out that that strength within your hand or in your grip can actually reveal. much, much more about an individual over and above their business determination. So it does turn out when looking at grip strength as a predictor of possible illness that reduced grip strength is associated with a number of fairly common conditions like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia and Alzheimer's disease, depression, osteoporosis, and of course any major debilitating process. Well, it is worth remembering this and bearing in mind that keeping that grip strong is not just a reflection of how strong your hand and forearms are, but really a reflection of body strength. and therefore to a degree your strength and fitness. Interestingly, the Swedish Army have been collecting data on their conscription recruits for decades and have hundreds of thousands of participants where they've collected a whole lot of different vital signs. One of those being grip strength. Well, what they found when they looked at the conscription servicemen who they then tracked through public records through Sweden was that the men with the weakest grip strength in their late teens were 20% more likely to have died by their mid-50s compared to those with a moderate or high grip strength. Remarkably. Even suicide rates appeared to be as high as 25% higher in the group with the weakest grip strength compared to the rest. While this is all pretty challenging, it makes us wonder if we should just go out and squeeze a tennis ball, both hands, to make sure that we strengthen up those muscles and therefore improve our grip strength well you could do that but that's probably going to give rise to misleading results in the test and using grip strength as a predictor of a future problem is really only going to be accurate when we are incorporating exercises that will strengthen the forearms and hands in conjunction with the rest of the body. So what can you do? Well, almost anything will do. One would immediately leap to lifting weights. You can imagine as you get stronger, for example, doing a deadlift, your grip strength has to get stronger as you can lift more and more with a deadlift. Otherwise, you just can't hold the bar as you start to stand up. I'm not suggesting that you need to be doing weights, but any form of exercise will offer some positive upside in the space of grip strength, even Tai Chi, believe it or not. So the word to the wise is, if you can get your grip strength checked, do so. If you can then get that calibrated and compared to your age-matched equivalent, That gives you some sense of position where you might be and whether you're at increased risk or not compared to the rest of the population you're in. If you do have a weak grip strength, it's probably reflective of overall health status. And if that's the case, then it's a really good reminder, a really good flag to start to... look after yourself a little bit more. You may certainly throw in some weights, but you'd certainly throw in plenty of exercise. So that's grip strength. Well, I thought I'd wrap up this particular podcast with a member feedback on a previous podcast. I had talked about some warnings around heavy metals in chocolate and how the Food authorities, medical authorities, particularly in the US, had put a number of large chocolate manufacturers under warning because of heavy metal contamination. Well, one of the listeners was good enough to get back to me and offered a couple of articles. based in Western Australia, where they looked at older women who consumed chocolate on a daily basis had lower bone density and strength with an increased calcium excretion. Also another study that found that blood lead and cadmium levels are negatively associated with bone mineral density in young females. but not males. So a real concern with possible heavy metal in chocolate. Well, this same report, if you like, also offered a little bit of extra information, which I will just quickly share. And that was that we know that chocolate contains oxalates. which inhibit calcium and other mineral absorption. But chocolate also includes flavonoids, these things that come from plants. They all act as antioxidants and other antioxidants that actually aid in bone health. It is reported that people who eat dark chocolate have a 70% reduction in depression due to some serotonin release that's associated, that feel-good neurochemical. And depression, we know, leads to inflammation. And we know that if we get inflamed, that's no good for bone health either. So it seems that the jury is out to some degree on chocolate and bone health in particular. But my advice would be... Check it's a reliable supplier. See if there's anything on the internet about heavy metals and the company who's made the chocolate you're enjoying. And kick back and enjoy it. It is also worth noting the same listener pointed out that raw cacao is four times higher in antioxidants than dark chocolate. And perhaps we should be enjoying a cup of raw cacao instead. All right, well, I hope you found grip strength and a little update on heavy metals and chocolate interesting. I'm going to wish you the very best. If you do wish to feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Send me a note at info at drWarrickbishop.online. Till next time, I wish you the very best and thanks for tuning in. Bye for now. Join the Healthy Heart Network and become part of our growing community. If you're interested in your heart health and risk of heart attack, then join the Healthy Heart Network for only $5 as a lifetime member. This represents $55 worth of value. We offer and help people understand their present state of heart health. what their current level of risk is and the positive steps they can take to improve their risk of heart attack in the future. Go to www.healthyheartnetwork.com.au and click the join the family button.
