The researchers assessed the flexibility of more than 3,000 middle-aged people, using a system called Flexindex that looks at people’s ability to stretch in 20 ways using seven different joints, including being able to touch their toes or touch the back of their left shoulder with their right hand above their head.
In the latest analysis, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, researchers found that people aged 46 to 65 who had higher Flexindex scores had better odds of surviving the next decade of their lives.
Women with a low Flexindex score had a nearly five-fold higher risk of death, while men with a low score had a double the risk, once factors such as age, obesity and existing health conditions were taken into account, said the researchers from the sports medicine clinic, CLINIMEX, in Rio de Janeiro.
“Aerobic fitness, strength and balance were associated with lower mortality,” said Dr. Claudio Gil S. Araujo, one of the paper’s authors. “We were able to show that lower body flexibility was also associated with poorer survival in middle-aged men and women.”
“Since flexibility tends to decrease as we age, people may want to include stretching exercises in their routine,” he added.
Maintaining the ability to move easily is one way to help avoid muscle loss, the medical term for the loss of muscle function as you age.
It is worth noting that the study had several controversial limitations, one of which is that the participants were primarily wealthy and white, which may limit the implications for other groups. And while poor resilience was considered an indicator of increased risk of death in the study, the issue itself was not about what might lead to people’s deaths, and these factors were not identified in the study.
Source: Daily Mail
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2024-08-26 00:50:10
