2518-P: Association between Skeletal Muscle Strength and Insulin Resistance in Elderly T2DM Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction and Objective: T2DM in older adults is commonly associated with insulin resistance and a decline in skeletal muscle strength, contributing to poor metabolic control and functional impairment.Handgrip strength is a simple, non-invasive marker of skeletal muscle function. Evidence reported that lower Handgrip Strength may lead to higher insulin resistance leading to multiple metabolic complications. However, data from Indian populations remain limited. This study was undertaken to determine whether skeletal muscle strength is associated with insulin resistance in elderly patients with T2DM Methods: A total of 60 participants aged ≥ 40 years were included in the study. Out of 60, 30 were T2DM patients, and 30 were healthy age and gender-matched controls. In all the participants Handgrip strength was assessed by a digital handheld dynamometer and insulin resistance was assessed by HOMA-IR.Multivariate linear regression was used to assess the association between Handgrip strength and insulin resistance after adjusting for age, gender and BMI Results: We observed that Handgrip strength was significantly decreased in T2DM patients compared to controls (p<0.05). The multivariate linear regression model shows that lower Handgrip strength was significantly associated with higher HbA1C (p<0.01) and higher HOMA-IR (p<0.05). A negative correlation was present between Handgrip Strength and fasting blood glucose (r= -0.48, p<0.01) and HbA1C (r= -0.48, p<0.01) in T2DM patients Conclusion: Reduced skeletal muscle strength is independently associated with greater insulin resistance and poorer glycemic control in elderly T2DM patients. Handgrip Strength may serve as a simple screening tool for metabolic risk assessment in this population. Our study findings may be a novel approach for screening insulin resistance, if confirmed in larger population groups. Disclosure L. Devineni: None. N. Priyadarsini: None. K.K. Behera: None. S. Kumari: None.