Forget costly MRI’s and DNA analyses – testing how healthy you are can be done in the comfort of your home.
Researchers from the Mayo Clinic found the amount of time someone was able to balance on one foot indicated how strong their bones, muscle and nerves were, which indicate frailty.
Being frail makes people more vulnerable to health problems because it reduces the body’s ability to cope with stressors and recover from falls and illnesses.
The average 50 year old was able to balance for roughly nine seconds, whereas the average 80 year old was nearing 3 seconds.
Standing on one foot requires your body to perform a series of complex tasks at the same time.
To stay upright, it involves tiny organs inside your ear which control balance, visual cues from your eyes and multiple large muscle groups in your legs and trunk.
In 2019, the late Daily Mail contributor Dr Michael Mosley remarked on the benefits of practicing your balance on one leg.
Mosley noted at the time that if you’re able to do so for ten seconds with your eyes closed, you should be in good health – regardless of your age.
The wellness world has made an industry out of longevity testing. Reality-TV star Kim Kardashian made headlines last year for promoting full body MRI’s to test for a number of age-related diseases.
Popular biohackers like Bryan Johnson measure everything from their cholesterol to their nighttime erections to get an idea of how they measure up to other people their age.
But scientists, like those of the Mayo Clinic team, are looking for simpler, more cost effective ways to give patients an idea of their health, both at home and in the doctor’s office.
Science has long known that muscles, bones and movement deteriorate as we age.
It’s not clear whether strength, balance or your gait starts to go first, and therefore what is the best measure of age.
So the researchers from the Mayo Clinic aimed to determined this by performing a battery of movement-related tests on a 40 participants aged 50 to 80.
They excluded obese people and people with pre-existing conditions that would affect their balance or stride and created tests that measured their gait, balance and strength.
‘I managed eight seconds, not bad for a 62-year-old,’ said Dr Michael Mosley (pictured)
For strength testing, they used a custom device to test the grip strength of the participants and a test that involved extending the knee as quickly as possible.
The gait test had participants walk back and forth on a 26 foot walk way at a comfortable speed while wearing motion capture sensors three separate times.
They used measurements like speed, step length and stride length.
Finally, in the balance test, individuals were tested on two legs and one leg.
For the two leg test, they were instructed to look forward, once with eyes open and once with eyes closed, and put their feet on two force plates – which measure a the force someone exerts onto the ground.
For the one leg test, physical therapists told the participants to stand straight up with their arms in whatever position was comfortable.
They then were timed lifting and holding one leg at a time, for however long they were able to maintain balance.
The way they walked didn’t change significantly as people aged, but the amount of time their balance, grip and knee strength did. The findings were published in the journal of the the Public Library of Science.
The measurement that changed the most with age was balancing on one leg. Researchers said this makes for a good measurement of frailty, independence, likelihood of a fall and nerve damage to the limbs.
With each decade of age, the amount of time someone was able to stand on their non-dominant leg declined by 2.2 seconds – so if someone who was 50 was able to balance for 15 seconds, someone who was 60 was able to balance for 12.8.
The two graphs show the amount of time someone was able to balance on their dominant and non-dominant feet, one at a time. On the non-dominant foot, the amount of time that participants were able to stand decreased by 2.2seconds per decade
For the dominant leg – the amount of time they were able to stand decline by 1.7 second per decade.
The researchers said that this test could be implemented in doctors offices as an inexpensive, low-technology way to test bone strength and aging.
They said: ‘This finding is significant because this measurement does not require specialized expertise, advanced tools, or techniques for measurement and interpretation. It can be easily performed, even by individuals themselves.’
Having an idea of where you’re at in your neuromuscular health can help you create a wellness plan that works for you.
For example, if strength or bone mass was lacking, an individual could incorporate some light weight training into their routine to try and regain some strength.
The researchers concluded that these results, ‘can help optimize these training and maintenance programs to improve balance and strength in the elderly population, thereby postponing or avoiding disability.’
