Exploring relationships between anthropometric indices of adiposity and physical performance in middle-aged and elderly women: a canonical correlation analysis

Abstract

Objectives: To analyze the influence of anthropometric indices of adiposity on the physical performance of middle-aged and older women. Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted with 368 women from 50 to 80 years old. Anthropometric, biochemical dosage and physical performance evaluation were performed. Statistical analysis used measures of central tendency and dispersion for descriptive data; Pearson correlation to demonstrate the initial association between the variables and canonical correlation (CC) to evaluate the relationship between the set of anthropometric adiposity indices and the variables that make up the performance. Results: The participants had a mean age of 58.57 years (8.21), a visceral adiposity index (VAI) of 7.09 (4.23), a body mass index (BMI) of 29.20 kg/m2 (4.94) and conicity index of 1.33 (0.07). The average handgrip strength was 25.06 kgf (4.89), gait speed was 1.07 m∕s (0.23) and the mean of the Short Physical Perfomance Battery (SPPB) score was 10.83 (1.36). The first canonical function presented the highest shared variance, CC and redundancy index (cumulative percentage of variance = 82.52, Wilks Lambda = 0.66, CC = 0.532, p value <0.001). From the analysis of this canonical function, an inverse correlation was observed between the conicity index (-0.59), the handgrip strength (0.84) and the SPPB (0.68), as well as a direct correlation with gait speed (-0.43). Conclusions: Our findings showed that in middle-aged and older women there was an inverse relationship between the conicity index and muscle strength and power, while a direct relationship was found between the same index and gait speed.