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 That’s because strong muscles may help counter what’s known as
stress urinary incontinence, which happens when the pelvic floor
muscles supporting the bladder are too weak to prevent urine leaks
when people do things like cough, sneeze or exercise. Childbirth is
a common reason for weak pelvic muscles, and obesity makes the
problem worse.
In the study, researchers examined data on 1,475 elderly women,
including 212 who experienced stress incontinence at least once a
month and another 223 who had what’s known as overactive bladder, or
urge incontinence, at least monthly.
Women were less likely to develop or continue experiencing stress
incontinence by the end of the three-year study when they didn’t
have much decline in muscle strength, as assessed by grip strength.
Women also had lower odds of stress incontinence when they lost
substantial amounts of weight and fat mass.
“Our study found that changes in body composition and grip strength
are associated with changes in stress urinary incontinence frequency
over time, but not with changes in urgency urinary incontinence
frequency over time,” said lead study author Dr. Anne Suskind of the
University of California, San Francisco.
“This finding may be explained by the anatomic underpinnings of
stress versus urgency incontinence,” Suskind added by email.
Overactive bladder, or urge incontinence, happens when the body has
a constant need to urinate and sometimes leads people to leak urine
when they can’t get to a toilet quickly.
High body mass index (BMI) – a ratio of weight relative to height –
is a risk factor for incontinence in young and middle-aged adults,
researchers note in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
As people age, however, the relationship between BMI and
incontinence gets more complicated because of change in body
composition and the amount of fat versus lean muscle mass, the
researchers point out.
For the current study, researchers asked participants to complete
questionnaires about incontinence and also examined data on their
BMI, grip strength, leg power in the quadriceps and walking speed.
All of the women were between 70 and 79 years old at the start of
the study.
Women who experienced at least a 5 percent decrease in grip strength
during the study were 60 percent more likely to have new or
persistent stress incontinence by the end.
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In addition, women who had a 5 percent or greater drop in BMI during
the study were 54 percent less likely to have stress incontinence
three years later.
After accounting for BMI, a 5 percent or greater increase in lean
muscle mass was associated with 83 percent lower odds of stress
incontinence, while at least a 5 percent decrease in fat mass was
tied to 47 percent lower odds of stress incontinence.
One limitation of the study is its reliance on women to accurately
recall and report on the frequency and type of incontinence they
experienced, the authors note. The women didn’t have exams to verify
the details about incontinence they reported on questionnaires.
Even so, the findings suggest that weight loss and exercise aimed at
muscle strength may help prevent stress incontinence, Dr. Blayne
Welk, a researcher at Western University and St. Joseph’s Hospital
in London, Ontario, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
“By reducing weight and abdominal fat there is less pressure on the
bladder resulting in less stress urinary incontinence,” said Dr.
Cindy Amundsen of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “Better
muscle strength may be associated with higher pelvic floor muscle
strength and function, decreasing the susceptibility to urine
leakage.”
Women can work when they’re younger to lower their odds of
incontinence as they age, Amundsen, who wasn’t involved in the
study, added by email.
“Women should optimize their body composition by achieving a normal
BMI and improve their muscle strength, and they should continue to
do so well into their 70s,” Amundsen said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2getN96 Journal of the American Geriatrics
Society, online December 5, 2016.
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