14 DAY TRIAL // A new study published online in the British Medical Journal suggests that people who are better at simple physical acts like gripping, walking, balancing on one leg and rising from a chair, have more chances of living longer.
This study has focused on older people living in the community and their ability to perform everyday tasks, people in institutions such as hospitals and care homes being excluded.
57 studies were found, and data was taken from the 28 that looked at physical abilities in people of any age, and the way it influenced on mortality.
Researchers from the Medical Research Council Unit for Lifelong Health and Aging contacted most of the authors of these studies and asked them to fill in a standardized results table.
This, along with unpublished results from five other studies formed the 33 sets of results that were examined and included in the review, reports Science Daily.
Between all of these studies there were certainly variations but overall, there was evidence that people who had lower performances in physical capability tests had a greater death risk.
Out of 53,476 people that took part in 14 studies studying grip strength, the death rate among the weakest ones was 1.67 times greater than among the strongest people, after accounting for age, sex, and body size.
Out of five studies (including 14,692 participants) that dealt with walking speed, the death rate among the slowest people was 2.87 times greater than among the people who were fastest.
In 28,036 people included in five studies that dealt with chair rising, the death rate of people who were the slowest was almost twice the rate of people who were fastest.
Even if most of the studies were carried out amongst older people, the association of grip strength with mortality is also a phenomenon found in younger populations.
The authors of the review say that there is a need for this type of studies, carried on young people too, and they underline the fact that there not enough research to look at the associations between changes in capability with age and mortality.
“Objective measures of physical capability are predictors of all cause mortality in older community dwelling populations.
“Such measures may therefore provide useful tools for identifying older people at higher risk of death,” conclude the researchers.