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Slow walking at 45 'a sign of faster ageing'
- mikedilger 7y agoStudy link: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2752818 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... The study was done in NZ in Dunedin. I wonder how much difference/coorelation there is between locales. I've found that Wellingtonians walk very fast in general - I thought I was a fast walker always passing people in San Francisco, but when I moved to Wellington everybody was passing me.
- saryant 7y agoWell it helps when the wind is pushing you along.
- benj111 7y agoInteresting. I always thought fast walking was related to city size. In average towns I'm a fast walker, when I go to medium cities I'm an average walker, and in London I'm a slow walker. I wonder if it's another correlated factor? Usage of public transport?
- timClicks 7y agoIt's amazing that the Dunedin Study is still producing results like this. I wonder why longitudinal studies are not more common now, given that these 900 people have been such a deep source of knowledge.
- isoskeles 7y agoMaybe you were just passing the tourists.
- AssTrolladjer 7y agoThis shit will not replicate. Classic p-value hacking, if not total fiction, dreamt up to pad chum buckets. It is junk science to the core. I'd bet one thousand dollars that another researcher could wrangle contradictory data with a diametrically opposed result. This trash infotainment has been selected because it is inconsequential to the point of being astrology. No individual can take this "discovery" and apply it to their daily life, but most importantly, it's been selected such that should any moron try it out on their own, they won't be able cause harm. Perfect fodder for the BBC nanny state media. So... what's your sign?
- xerox13ster 7y agoTaurus ! Yours?
- zxcmx 7y agoIs this just a general position or do you have concerns with this specific study? I tend to be reflexively skeptical of results like this as well - but I also have a lot of time for results from the Dunedin study. Long-term studies are great and we (society, science) should do more of them.
- chvid 7y agoReminds me of the article about "cancer-prone personalities" finally being classified as junk science which just dropped off the hn frontpage. We really should be more generous with the word bullshit.
- gerbilly 7y agoYour whole post is just an empty argument from authority. Who are you and why should we just believe what you are saying any more then the study?
- Scoundreller 7y ago> A number of treatments, from low-calorie diets to taking the drug metformin, are currently being investigated. Everything I read about metformin is exciting: cheap, simple structure, causes weight loss, reduced all-cause mortality in diabetics (ie: they studied it long enough to make sure it works, not just to ensure it reduces blood sugar), reduces blood sugar without hypoglycemia and might prevent cancer.
- thewileyone 7y agoMetformin damages the liver as a side effect.
- gokhan 7y agoCan you provide your source? This one says otherwise, I'm really interested in your source as someone taking M daily: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20452916 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20452916
- Scoundreller 7y agoI don’t think there is any evidence for it damaging the liver. It does have effects on it (the liver does create glucose after all), but nothing I’ve seen says it damages the liver in normal dosages.
- NotSammyHagar 7y agoYes, I want to find a doc to prescribe me this and also understands the negatives. Why aren't there more docs doing this kind of stuff? Maybe bc it is not so simple?
- Scoundreller 7y agoPreventative pharmaceutical treatments are, culturally, a hard sell unless you have some documented risk factor better than "life". But if you can find a provider that specializes in "anti-aging", it might be the first thing they reach for. Just don't buy into too much of what they say :) I would say anti-cholesterol medications were vastly marketed/sold and prescribed to those likely to only benefit a bit. The "Number Needed To Treat" (NNT) was over 100 for most populations prescribed it. But at $1/day and several pharma companies manufacturing their versions, there was a lot of profit from influencing. But metformin is cheaper than cheap, so that won't happen. Mass vaccinations were (mostly) an easy sell when they prevented debilitating diseases that harm children (e.g. polio), but remain harder sells when the benefits are primarily for the old/already ill (e.g. flu vaccines).
- greysphere 7y agoThis sounds like one of the billion things correlated with having less money. https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/03/why-people-cities-walk-fast/1550/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/03/why-people-cities-walk-...
- aiexplorations 7y agoThank you, that was interesting.
- nostrademons 7y agoAnd to g, that statistical construct that's most commonly associated with IQ but also correlates heavily with general health and economic outcomes.
- spodek 7y agoGeoffrey West, former theoretical physicist now at the Santa Fe Institute, found many scaling laws in biology, cities, businesses, and more. One was that people's walking speed scales with city size. Fascinating results. Here's a short article about his book, Scale: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/books/2017/07/11/a-physicist-probes-an-elegant-law-that-governs-cells-cities-and-almost-everything-in-between https://blogs.sciencemag.org/books/2017/07/11/a-physicist-pr.... He's spoken with TED too: https://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_of_cities_and_corporations https://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_.... Here are my podcast episodes with him, where he describes his findings: http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/geoffrey-west http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/geoffrey-west. (I'm a former physicist too who walks fast at 48.)
- Donald 7y agoFull article is available at the Journal of the American Medical Association's website: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2752818 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... An interesting take-away not mentioned in the BBC write-up is that the researchers found significant effects as early as three years old, suggesting causal factors found in early childhood or a genetic origin. Perhaps sedentary behavior early in life has long-lasting effects for the CNS? > Lifelong compromised brain health—including poor neurocognitive functioning as early as age 3 years and childhood-to-adulthood decline in cognitive functioning—was associated with slower gait at midlife.
- TruckingThrow 7y agoThis is possible but I'd really like to see twin studies to confirm it, with differences in activity levels between the twins as the variable. I would suspect there is a genetic mechanism at play too, but at this point I'm spitballing.
- aiexplorations 7y agoAt the risk of sounding like confirmation bias, I have found many relatives and friends to adhere to this kind of simple rule. The more agile and active you in middle age, the better your sleep quality probably is, and both of these are a proxy for how well you will age, apart from genes.
- OscarTheGrinch 7y agoUse it or lose it.
- PopeDotNinja 7y agoA researcher from the University of California, San Francisco posed this trivia question at a Q&A event on healthspan... At age 65, what single factor most accurately predicts the likelihood you'll live to age 100. The answer was walking speed (faster is better). He said that this has been shown in multiple studies, but they weren't sure why. Sorry, I don't have a source.
- psilocipher 7y agoSo, if you feel older than you really are, walk faster. Problem solved. Got it.
- NotSammyHagar 7y agocorrelation vs causation. If you walk slowly you won't be able to figure it out.
- psilocipher 7y agoMy point, albeit made sarcastically, is maybe some people just like to walk slowly. I was taught as a young man that walking slowly is a sign of wisdom and confidence. It means you know where you are going, you left on time, and you're not in a hurry.
- Someone 7y ago”Even at the age of 45, there was a wide variation in walking speeds with the fastest moving at 4m/s at top speed (without running).” 4m/s? That’s 14,4 km/hour. They must have met a racewalker (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_masters_athletics#5000_metres_race_walk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_maste... says the world record for 45 year old for 5k is 20:28:28. That’s almost exactly that speed) I can surely imagine those walking at those speeds to be healthier than average.
- ekianjo 7y agoLooks like they edited their article: > Even at the age of 45, there was a wide variation in walking speeds with the fastest moving at 2m/s at top speed (without running).
- ColinWright 7y agoI suspect they were mixing units and someone got it wrong. As noted elsewhere, the article is now edited, but it's worth noting that 2 m/s (the value now quoted) is a little over 4 mph.
- hanniabu 7y agoIt's not so difficult to walk at those paces. The difficult part comes in with the length and abiding by the rules and regulations.
- philippeback 7y agoI walk slower because I have smaller legs. Pff, but then I can swim faster than quite a lot of younger people, for longer, and daily. And run. WTF.
- TruckingThrow 7y ago>I walk slower I have bad news for you, friend.
- taneq 7y agoThis reminds me of the “surprising” finding that ability to stand from seated partition without using your hands is associated with dramatically lower chance of dying within 5 years. Of course, this is because anyone likely to die of old age within 5 years is unlikely to be that spry.
- darkerside 7y agoCorrelation doesn't equal causation, in either direction. It's fashionable to downplay the physical these days, but I think it's reasonable to hypothesize that if you don't maintain your muscle, you reduce quality of life AND increase mortality risk significantly.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoIt’s much worse if you can’t maintain your muscles, rather than just don’t. And older people have a lot of reasons that can happen (my dad degraded like this quickly from cancer we didn’t know about at the time).
- Markoff 7y agowell I walk much slower since I walk with small children and I guess it took its toll on even when I walk alone. what's the point reversing to your regular high speed when later you need to drag with children? it's just easier to get used to lower speed. many people at 45 could still have like 5yo child (2nd) or even younger or was the study done only on childless people?
- mcv 7y agoSounds like it's a good sign that at 45, I am still annoyed by how slowly everybody else is walking.