A recent study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine discovered that the inability to balance for ten seconds on each leg could imply nearly double the risk of death in the next seven years for people in later life. The study defines “later life” as those people ages 51 to 75, with a mean age around 61 for those tested.
This is not meant to be all doom and gloom, as the researchers themselves have admitted the test had certain flaws: “As one leg standing requires good balance, linked to brain function, good muscle strength and good blood flow, it likely integrates muscular, vascular and brain systems so it is a global test of future mortality risk — albeit crude…If someone cannot do the 10 seconds and is worried, they should reflect on their own health risks,” said Naveed Sattar, a professor of metabolic medicine at the Institute of Cardiovascular & Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow.
The test might merely be an observation, but an interesting one at that given the high-stakes nature of its hypothesis.
Fixing Muscle Imbalance
