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Also, playing golf adds 5 years to your life expectancy [1]. I kid you not. Start playing today, and you’ll live years longer. This has nothing to do with the f

Also, playing golf adds 5 years to your life expectancy [1]. I kid you not. Start playing today, and you’ll live years longer. This has nothing to do with the fact that most golf players are really wealthy, and so they have access to way better healthcare, nutrition, and lifestyle than the rest of us. Said differently, correlation does not imply causation. [1] https://www.golfandhealth.org/news/golfers-longevity/?amp_markup=1 https://www.golfandhealth.org/news/golfers-longevity/?amp_ma...

baal80spam 5y ago
Love it!
treeman79 5y ago
Decided to take up golf. Now I can’t feel my leg.
cperciva 5y ago
They claim that was adjusted for socioeconomic status. Rather than being a matter of better access to health care etc, I suspect a reverse causation -- people who are in poor health are less likely to go out to the golf course. The same applies to Vitamin D, taking international flights, and reading books, all of which are correlated with reduced death rates.
qiskit 5y ago
Thank you. They always make it sound like X helps you lenghten your life. But it's always the case the X is a symptom of a healthy life, not the cause of it. Strong hands is probably a result of exercise and leading a healthy life which leads to higher life expectancy. Meaning exercise and leading a healthy life is the cause of strong hands and higher life expectancy. Golf industry says golf lengthens your life. Hand grip industry says strong hands lengthen life. Can't help but be a little bit cynical the older I get.
- m463 5y ago
  I would imagine few people with a strong grip have everything else in their body weak. So a strong grip might correlate with strong everything else. By the way, strong hands are controlled by strings and pulleys - it's really just strong forearm muscles. It would be interesting if the study was for people with JUST a strong grip, like folks who were always in a chair. I remember reading of another study where people who were pear-shaped were healthier than people who were round. Turns out that people put on weight at the waist first, and as they put on more weight, it moves to the chest and shoulders, so...
rufus_foreman 5y ago
Here's a metastudy of 26 studies of the results of handgrip training on systolic blood pressure: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6292032/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6292032/. The results were that handgrip training for at least 4 weeks reduced blood pressure by around 5 mmHg. Which yes, could lengthen some lives. Assuming that correlations are spurious is as poor an approach as assuming they are not.
- humanrebar 5y ago
  Without understanding of a mechanism we're still talking about correlation, though. Just one backed up by a metastudy.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    Not knowing the cause doesn’t mean much, in terms of valid association, unless the effect deviates as people adopt the correlating behavior. If we don’t know the mechanism but it continues to produce the same result absent other unrelated factors, it’s likely in the chain or determining factors.
  - DennisP 5y ago
    I saw a study like that a year or two ago. It wasn't just correlation, they did an actual clinical trial. They measured BP before intervention, had people do a specific exercise to increase hand strength, had a control group, and measured everybody afterwards.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  Isn't that a hint at a more general trick ? anything that improve blood pressure should be done a bit ?
vharuck 5y ago
Similarly, a diagnosis of in situ prostate cancer means you'll have less risk of dying[1] over the next ten years compared to the rest of your age and race group. Totally not because men who catch these cancers early have good health insurance, regularly see their doctor, and keep up with screening procedures, plus all the other behaviors associated with those personality types. [1] If you look at the U.S. national statistics, net cancer survival rates top out at 100%. That's because their algorithm doesn't allow any negative values for risk. I think that's enforcing a belief on the data, so I've always calculated it differently. People diagnosed with in situ prostate cancer, in situ testicle cancer, and (IIRC) in situ melanoma all have better survival chances than their peers. Unsurprisingly, all are screenable and easily treated if caught early.
groby_b 5y ago
Even worse, you'll likely have spent these five years on the golf course.
tehnub 5y ago
They hypothesize two reasonable mechanisms for increasing health: >Stronger hands grip tighter to prevent falls — and brace stronger when you tumble. >Grip strength is especially important for those older adults who use canes, walkers or handrails or need assistance getting out of chairs, says David Bellar, a kinesiologist at UNC Charlotte. Care to say anything about that?
- fny 5y ago
  Is there a study that looks at grip strength vs falls? As is, grip strength could be a result of exercise which obviously improves health outcomes.
robbedpeter 5y ago
Eating caviar frequently is also strongly correlated with increased personal wealth - start eating as much as you can to get rich!
IncRnd 5y ago
The page you linked should but doesn't reference the actual study. The mortality reduction from non-golfers changed according to golf handicap not just according to playing golf. "Golf: a game of life and death – reduced mortality in Swedish golf players" by B. Farahmand, G. Broman, U. De Faire, D. Vågerö, A. Ahlbom. "Golfers with the lowest handicap (the most skilled players) had the lowest mortality; SMR=0.53 (95% CI: 0.41–0.67) compared with 0.68 (95% CI: 0.61–0.75) for those with the highest handicap. While we cannot conclude with certainty that all the 40% decreased mortality rates are explained by the physical activity associated with playing golf, we conclude that most likely this is part of the explanation. To put the observed mortality reduction in context, it may be noted that a 40% reduction of mortality rates corresponds to an increase in life expectancy of about 5 years." [1] [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2008.00814.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1600-0838...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
swader999 5y ago
Might be just from the social aspects of it.

baal80spam 5y ago

Love it!

treeman79 5y ago

Decided to take up golf. Now I can’t feel my leg.

cperciva 5y ago

They claim that was adjusted for socioeconomic status. Rather than being a matter of better access to health care etc, I suspect a reverse causation -- people who are in poor health are less likely to go out to the golf course. The same applies to Vitamin D, taking international flights, and reading books, all of which are correlated with reduced death rates.

qiskit 5y ago

Thank you. They always make it sound like X helps you lenghten your life. But it's always the case the X is a symptom of a healthy life, not the cause of it. Strong hands is probably a result of exercise and leading a healthy life which leads to higher life expectancy. Meaning exercise and leading a healthy life is the cause of strong hands and higher life expectancy. Golf industry says golf lengthens your life. Hand grip industry says strong hands lengthen life. Can't help but be a little bit cynical the older I get.

m463 5y ago
I would imagine few people with a strong grip have everything else in their body weak. So a strong grip might correlate with strong everything else. By the way, strong hands are controlled by strings and pulleys - it's really just strong forearm muscles. It would be interesting if the study was for people with JUST a strong grip, like folks who were always in a chair. I remember reading of another study where people who were pear-shaped were healthier than people who were round. Turns out that people put on weight at the waist first, and as they put on more weight, it moves to the chest and shoulders, so...

rufus_foreman 5y ago

Here's a metastudy of 26 studies of the results of handgrip training on systolic blood pressure: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6292032/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6292032/. The results were that handgrip training for at least 4 weeks reduced blood pressure by around 5 mmHg. Which yes, could lengthen some lives. Assuming that correlations are spurious is as poor an approach as assuming they are not.

humanrebar 5y ago
Without understanding of a mechanism we're still talking about correlation, though. Just one backed up by a metastudy.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  Not knowing the cause doesn’t mean much, in terms of valid association, unless the effect deviates as people adopt the correlating behavior. If we don’t know the mechanism but it continues to produce the same result absent other unrelated factors, it’s likely in the chain or determining factors.
- DennisP 5y ago
  I saw a study like that a year or two ago. It wasn't just correlation, they did an actual clinical trial. They measured BP before intervention, had people do a specific exercise to increase hand strength, had a control group, and measured everybody afterwards.
agumonkey 5y ago
Isn't that a hint at a more general trick ? anything that improve blood pressure should be done a bit ?

vharuck 5y ago

Similarly, a diagnosis of in situ prostate cancer means you'll have less risk of dying[1] over the next ten years compared to the rest of your age and race group. Totally not because men who catch these cancers early have good health insurance, regularly see their doctor, and keep up with screening procedures, plus all the other behaviors associated with those personality types. [1] If you look at the U.S. national statistics, net cancer survival rates top out at 100%. That's because their algorithm doesn't allow any negative values for risk. I think that's enforcing a belief on the data, so I've always calculated it differently. People diagnosed with in situ prostate cancer, in situ testicle cancer, and (IIRC) in situ melanoma all have better survival chances than their peers. Unsurprisingly, all are screenable and easily treated if caught early.

groby_b 5y ago

Even worse, you'll likely have spent these five years on the golf course.

tehnub 5y ago

They hypothesize two reasonable mechanisms for increasing health: >Stronger hands grip tighter to prevent falls — and brace stronger when you tumble. >Grip strength is especially important for those older adults who use canes, walkers or handrails or need assistance getting out of chairs, says David Bellar, a kinesiologist at UNC Charlotte. Care to say anything about that?

fny 5y ago
Is there a study that looks at grip strength vs falls? As is, grip strength could be a result of exercise which obviously improves health outcomes.

robbedpeter 5y ago

Eating caviar frequently is also strongly correlated with increased personal wealth - start eating as much as you can to get rich!

IncRnd 5y ago

The page you linked should but doesn't reference the actual study. The mortality reduction from non-golfers changed according to golf handicap not just according to playing golf. "Golf: a game of life and death – reduced mortality in Swedish golf players" by B. Farahmand, G. Broman, U. De Faire, D. Vågerö, A. Ahlbom. "Golfers with the lowest handicap (the most skilled players) had the lowest mortality; SMR=0.53 (95% CI: 0.41–0.67) compared with 0.68 (95% CI: 0.61–0.75) for those with the highest handicap. While we cannot conclude with certainty that all the 40% decreased mortality rates are explained by the physical activity associated with playing golf, we conclude that most likely this is part of the explanation. To put the observed mortality reduction in context, it may be noted that a 40% reduction of mortality rates corresponds to an increase in life expectancy of about 5 years." [1] [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2008.00814.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1600-0838...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

swader999 5y ago

Might be just from the social aspects of it.