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Illnesses in the family to lifestyle: There are a number of criteria that influence life expectancy. According to a new study, a simple balance test can also provide information.
How long do I live? A question that most people ignore. For good reason: the thought of the end of life is not necessarily uplifting for most people. For researchers around the world, however, the question of life expectancy is an interesting one from a medical point of view. Countless scientific works address the question of which factors lengthen or shorten our lives. Signs of premature death are also examined empirically.
An international team of researchers came to the conclusion that a simple balance exercise can show how your life expectancy is. “Our aim was to investigate whether the ability to complete a 10-second single-legged stand is associated with all-cause mortality and whether it provides relevant prognostic information beyond the usual demographic, anthropometric and clinical data,” the researchers said Claudio Gill Araujo from the Exercise Medicine Clinic-CLINIMEX in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
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Standing on one leg for ten seconds: balance test results in detail
As part of the study, scientists collected the health data of 1,702 people (68 percent of whom were men) aged 51-75, collected between 2008 and 2020. The subjects also completed the ten-second one-legged stand. Seven percent of the study participants died during the average observation period of seven years. Most due to cancer, followed by cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases and corona complications. Strikingly: The proportion of deaths was significantly higher among those who had failed the balance test, namely 17.5 percent compared to 4.5 percent, as was also the case Ärzteblatt informed.
How long you can balance on one leg says a lot about your health. © Imago
Editor’s note: This text has already appeared in the past. Many readers were particularly interested in it. That’s why we’re offering it again.
As the Ärzteblatt further informs, the inability to stand on one leg without support for ten seconds was associated with an 84 percent increased risk of dying from any cause within the next decade. “In an adjusted model that took into account age, gender, body mass index and comorbidities, people who could not stand on one leg for more than ten seconds died earlier. “The ability to do this, on the other hand, was associated with a significantly improved prediction of the mortality risk,” said the researchers in their study.
More information about the study „Successful 10-second one-legged stance performance predicts survival in middle-aged and older individuals“
Release date: 21 June 2022
Investigation period: 2008 to 2020; average observation period of seven years
Published im British Journal of Sports Medicine
Scope: 1,702 study participants
Study authors: International research team led by Claudio Gill Araujo from the Exercise Medicine Clinic-CLINIMEX in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
