Dallas Chiropractor Best Practices
Research Commentary;
Flexibility and Strength Determine Life Expectancy
A review of
De Brito, Leonardo Barbosa Barreto, et al. “Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality.” European journal of preventive cardiology 21.7 (2014): 892-898.
By Dr. Bryan Stephens
Summarized Review Conclusions
An evaluation on the ability to go from standing to sitting and back again showed a significant difference in somebody’s life expectancy. The more flexibility and strength the participants showed, the longer they lived. A lower score was associated with a greater than 6 times higher mortality rate in men and women. Below you will find direct quotes key to findings of the referenced article along with my synopses of the research query, methodology and findings including references used by the research authors.
“Musculoskeletal fitness, as assessed by SRT, was a significant predictor of mortality in 51–80-year-old subjects.”
De Brito, Leonardo Barbosa Barreto, et al. “Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality.” European journal of preventive cardiology 21.7 (2014): 892-898.
“a low score on a simple functional assessment tool, the SRT, was associated with >6-fold higher all-cause mortality in men and women.”
De Brito, Leonardo Barbosa Barreto, et al. “Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality.” European journal of preventive cardiology 21.7 (2014): 892-898.
“we found that the inability to sit and rise from the floor was related to lower survival, irrespective of age, sex, and BMI.”
De Brito, Leonardo Barbosa Barreto, et al. “Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality.” European journal of preventive cardiology 21.7 (2014): 892-898.
Introduction to the Research
It has been shown cardiovascular health correlates with higher life expectancy, but overall flexibility and strength are often overlooked. This study set out to test a basic sit-rise test among an elderly population to see how important these variables were separate of cardiovascular exercise in determining life expectancy. Participants achieved higher scores by being able to perform the test without bracing with hands or other objects. Those with lower scores had 5-6 times higher all-cause mortality risk and lived an average of 3 years shorter than those with the highest scores. 3 years! Just by being able to sit and stand!
Research Methodology
The authors looked at all evaluations performed between 1997 and 2011. The participants were those aged 51-80 at the time of the examination which amounted to 2076 participants. Scores were ranked at 5 with points being deducted for using hands or knees to sit down on the ground. Half points were also deducted based off unsteady execution. This was also true of standing from the ground.
Research Findings
“While the vast majority of the deaths were found in those participants with a low SRT scores, just one male, aged 64 years, and one female, aged 54 years, died having an SRT score of 10 during follow up. On the other hand, no subject older than 70 years scored 10 on the SRT… Based on an age-, gender-, and BMI-adjusted Cox analysis, there was a 3-year shorter life expectancy among subjects placed in the lowest score category as compared to subjects with the best score category… Proportional hazards analysis identified that SRT score was a significant predictor of all-cause mortality, with subjects in the lower score range exhibiting a 5–6-times higher risk as compared to those in the reference… By proportional hazards analysis, each increment in the SRT score was associated with a 21% reduction in all-cause mortality.”
De Brito, Leonardo Barbosa Barreto, et al. “Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality.” European journal of preventive cardiology 21.7 (2014): 892-898.
Research References
As always with these reviews, these are my takeaways from the article and I encourage you to read the article in its entirety. The references used in this article by the authors of this article are listed here.
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