22/06/2022
How are your balancing skills?
How well a person can balance can offer an insight into their health. An international group of experts from the UK, US, Australia, Finland and Brazil have completed a first-of-its-kind, 12-year study examining the relationship between balance and mortality. Although the research was observational and cannot establish cause, its findings were striking.
An inability to stand on one leg for 10 seconds in middle to later life is linked to a near doubling in the risk of death from any cause within the next 10 years. The results were published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The findings are so stark that the researchers, led by Dr Claudio Gil Araujo of the Clinimex exercise medicine clinic in Rio de Janeiro, suggest a balance test should be included in routine health checks for older people.
Read the full story: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/20/balancing-on-one-leg-useful-health-test-later-life-research?CMP=soc_567
