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The basic result (old people who walk faster live longer than old people who hobble around) shouldn't come as a surprise at all: if you see two 75-year-old wome
by jmharvey 13y ago
The basic result (old people who walk faster live longer than old people who hobble around) shouldn't come as a surprise at all: if you see two 75-year-old women at the mall, and one breezes by you like she has somewhere to be while the other shuffles past slowly, and you had to bet on which person had longer to live, you'd pick the fast one.
The interesting part is how strong the result is: "Predicted survival based on age, sex, and gait speed was as accurate as predicted based on age, sex, use of mobility aids, and self-reported function or as age, sex, chronic conditions, smoking history, blood pressure, body mass index, and hospitalization."
That's pretty remarkable. For a given age and sex, all of a person's headline medical information, taken together, is as good an indicator of longevity as their walking speed is.
- T-hawk 13y agoOf course, the gait speed itself takes as inputs many of the rest of those factors. Smoking history, body mass index, and chronic joint or muscular conditions all pretty directly affect one's ability to walk fast. So gait speed turns out to be a very convenient, easily measured proxy for those other variables.
- k2enemy 13y agoRight. I think the way to think of it is that in the context of survival, gait speed is a convenient and easily measured sufficient statistic for all this other stuff.
- herdrick 13y agoIt's probably causal as well. Faster gait means walking is more convenient, so the subject does it more, so the subject gets more exercise.
- ekanes 13y agoGrip strength is similar predictor of longevity. Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21541735 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21541735