Flexibility could be key to longer life

By Study Finds

Stretching every day might just add years to your life, it seems. A new study has uncovered an intriguing connection between body flexibility and longevity in middle-aged adults. The research suggests that individuals with greater overall body flexibility may have a lower risk of premature death.

While it’s widely known that physical fitness plays a crucial role in health and longevity, most research has focused on cardiovascular fitness and strength. This study breaks new ground by examining flexibility, an often-overlooked component of physical fitness, and its potential impact on survival rates.

The researchers used a comprehensive flexibility assessment tool called the Flexitest to evaluate the range of motion in 20 different joint movements across seven major joints in the body. These included movements in the ankles, knees, hips, trunk, wrists, elbows, and shoulders. By combining the scores from all these movements, they created a single “Flexindex” score to represent an individual’s overall body flexibility.

The study, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, involved 3,139 middle-aged adults (2,087 men and 1,052 women) between the ages of 46 and 65. These participants were part of the CLINIMEX Exercise cohort in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The researchers followed the participants for an average of nearly 13 years, tracking their health outcomes and survival rates.

What they found was striking: individuals with higher Flexindex scores had a significantly lower risk of death during the follow-up period. This relationship held true even after accounting for factors like age, body mass index (BMI), and overall health status.

The results were particularly pronounced at the extremes of flexibility. Among men, those in the lowest 10% of flexibility scores had a 21.2% death rate, compared to only 7.8% for those in the top 10%. For women, the difference was even more dramatic: a 15.4% death rate for the least flexible group versus just 2.0% for the most flexible.

Interestingly, the study also confirmed previous findings that women tend to be more flexible than men. On average, women’s Flexindex scores were 35% higher than men’s. In fact, older women between 61 and 65 were, on average, 10% more flexible than men between the ages of 46 and 50 – a full 15 years younger!

While the study doesn’t prove that increasing flexibility will directly lead to a longer life, it does suggest that flexibility could be an important indicator of overall health and longevity. The researchers speculate that poor flexibility might be linked to other health issues, such as arterial stiffness or chronic inflammation, which could contribute to a higher risk of death.

“Being aerobically fit and strong and having good balance have been previously associated with low mortality. We were able to show that reduced body flexibility is also related to poor survival in middle-aged men and women,” says corresponding author Dr. Claudio Gil S. Araújo, of the Exercise Medicine Clinic (CLINIMEX) in Rio, in a statement.

This research opens up new avenues for understanding the relationship between physical fitness and health. It suggests that flexibility assessments, like the Flexitest, could be valuable tools for identifying individuals at higher risk of premature death. Moreover, it raises the question of whether targeted flexibility training could potentially improve longevity – a topic that warrants further investigation.

Paper Summary

Methodology

The researchers employed a tool called the Flexitest to measure flexibility. This comprehensive assessment examines 20 different movements across seven major joints of the body, including the ankles, knees, hips, trunk, wrists, elbows, and shoulders. For each movement, a trained evaluator gently guides the joint to its maximum range of motion. This range is then compared to standardized diagrams and scored on a scale from 0 to 4, with 4 representing the highest degree of flexibility.

The scores from all 20 movements are then summed to create a “Flexindex” score, which ranges from 0 to 80 and represents the individual’s overall body flexibility. Following the initial assessment, the researchers tracked the participants for an average of about 13 years, recording survival data. They then used statistical methods to analyze the relationship between Flexindex scores and survival rates, while accounting for other factors such as age, body mass index, and overall health status.

Key Results

The study revealed a clear association between flexibility and survival. Participants with higher Flexindex scores demonstrated a higher likelihood of survival during the follow-up period. This trend held true for both men and women, even after adjusting for age, body mass index, and overall health. The relationship was most pronounced at the extremes of flexibility.

For men, those in the lowest 10% of flexibility had a 21.2% death rate, compared to just 7.8% for the top 10%. The difference was even more striking for women, with the least flexible 10% experiencing a 15.4% death rate, versus a mere 2.0% for the most flexible 10%. Interestingly, women were generally more flexible than men, with Flexindex scores averaging about 35% higher. The survival advantage associated with higher flexibility became apparent relatively early, within 5-6 years of the initial assessment.

Study Limitations

While the findings of this study are intriguing, it’s important to consider several limitations. The study participants were predominantly Caucasian and from higher socioeconomic and educational levels in Brazil, which may limit the generalizability of the results to other populations. The study design, while able to show a relationship between flexibility and survival, cannot prove that flexibility directly causes longer life. The researchers were unable to control for all factors that might affect both flexibility and survival, such as detailed exercise habits or diet.

Additionally, the study lacked information on smoking habits for all participants, which could potentially influence the results. Lastly, while the Flexitest is comprehensive, it might not capture all aspects of flexibility that could be important for health.

Discussion & Takeaways

This study suggests that flexibility could be an important component of overall health and longevity, alongside more well-known factors like cardiovascular fitness and strength. The researchers propose several potential explanations for this link. Flexibility might serve as an indicator of overall physical health and fitness. Alternatively, poor flexibility could be associated with other health issues, such as arterial stiffness or chronic inflammation. It’s also possible that more flexible individuals are more likely to engage in physical activities that promote health.

These findings raise interesting questions for future research, such as whether improving flexibility through targeted exercises could increase longevity, how flexibility interacts with other aspects of fitness in promoting health, and whether flexibility assessments could be used as a simple tool to identify individuals at higher risk of premature death. While more research is needed, this study suggests that paying attention to flexibility – through activities like stretching, yoga, or tai chi – could be beneficial for overall health and longevity.

Funding & Disclosures

The authors reported that they received no specific funding for this work and declared no conflicts of interest related to the study. This independence from external funding or conflicts of interest strengthens the credibility of the research, as it suggests the findings were not influenced by financial interests or biases from funding sources. The lack of external funding and conflicts of interest adds weight to the study’s conclusions and underscores the researchers’ commitment to unbiased scientific inquiry in this novel area of health and longevity research.

Source: Study Finds

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