Overall death rates are also linked with people’s ability to stand up from sitting on the floor. For instance, higher death rates from heart disease in older people correlate with slow walking speed, in a test where they were asked to walk 6 metres as fast as possible. Previous research has found that similar tests can give clues about our health. “It could just be that ability to balance is linked with strength in the legs, which is linked with overall strength and fitness,” he says.
People who have heart disease or cancer, say, tend to be less active and so would lose leg strength. The ability to stand on one leg depends not just on balance, but also on leg strength, which is linked to overall body strength and physical fitness, says Stensel.
How else could balance be linked to death rate? Vitamins and dietary supplements are a waste of money for most people But when the results were adjusted for factors such as age, weight, sex and ill health, they still showed that people who couldn’t pass the balance test had nearly double the death rate, with an 84 per cent higher risk of dying during the study period. Most of those who were over 70 were unable to complete the test. For instance, people tend to get worse at passing this balance test with age, and if you are older, you are more likely to die. Could the findings be related to other factors, rather than ill health? The study involved about 1700 people based in Brazil, most of whom were white. Those who couldn’t do this had a higher rate of dying during the next seven years than those who completed it: 17.5 per cent versus 4.6 per cent. People aged between 51 and 75 were asked to stand on one leg for 10 seconds, with one foot touching the calf of the other leg – a bit like a flamingo. What is the explanation, and should people practise standing on one leg at home? This is what the science says: What did the study investigate? People who are middle-aged or older and can’t balance on one leg for 10 seconds are more likely to die in the next seven years than those who can do it, according to a study out this week. But the joint moved very loosely and did not lock.How important is the ability to stand on one leg? That was put to the test in an experiment with a flamingo cadaver, which of course has no muscle activity because it is not living.įirst, the researchers tried manipulating the cadaver's joint in search of a locking mechanism that could explain the stability, she says. It suggests that while awake and active, the bird's swaying could be correcting for other movements, ultimately settling into a position while asleep that requires little to no muscle activity. "And that's the opposite of what we would expect for you or me - if I was standing on one leg and then closed my eyes, typically I would see a great increase in the amount of body sway and usually that results in people having to put their foot down," she says. But then something surprising happened – when an animal dozed off, the swaying dropped off dramatically. They recorded a small amount of swaying motion when the animals were awake. The researchers tested the movements of eight juvenile flamingos at Zoo Atlanta.
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