What is the best predictor of when you’ll die? That seems like a hard—not to mention morbid—question, but, incredibly, study after study is showing that simple tests of physical performance are highly predictive of future mortality.
My favorite recent example is a study from Brazil that tracked just over 2,000 subjects age 50 and up. A 10 point score system was developed to assess how easily they could get up off the floor based on a sitting-rising test (SRT):
Lower SRT scores were associated with higher mortality (p<0.001). A continuous trend for longer survival was reflected by multivariate-adjusted (age, sex, body mass index) hazard ratios of 5.44 (95% CI 3.1–9.5), 3.44 (95% CI 2.0–5.9), and 1.84 (95% CI 1.1–3.0) (p<0.001) from lower to higher SRT scores. Each unit increase in SRT score conferred a 21% improvement in survival. Conclusions: Musculoskeletal fitness, as assessed by SRT, was a significant predictor of mortality in 51–80-year-old subjects.
There was a clear relationship between how easy it was for the people to get off the floor and how long they lived.
A little deeper dive into the data shows that about 95 percent of the people who scored well (between eight and 10) survived over 14 years. Only about 60 percent of those who scored poorly (between zero and three) survived for 14 years, and the number of people who scored poorly increased with age.
And that’s not the only test out there that can predict lifespan. There is now evidence that poor grip strength predicts early mortality in young people.
