Can’t touch your toes? You have a five times higher risk of dying compared to people who can, a study suggests.
Data from more than 3,000 middle-aged people showed that people who had difficulty moving were much more likely to die within 10 years than people who were more flexible.
Brazilian researchers assessed the flexibility of study participants using a system called Flexindex.
This examines how people can stretch in 20 ways using seven different joints. Some examples include being able to touch your toes and being able to touch the back of your left shoulder with your right hand above your head.
At the end of the tests, people receive a total score between 0 and 80.
Brazilian researchers assessed the flexibility of study participants using a system called Flexindex (stock image)
The most recent analysis, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, found that people aged 46 to 65 with a higher Flexindex score are two to five times more likely to survive the next decade.
Of the more than 3,000 participants who took part in the analysis, approximately one in ten had died by the end of the study.
According to the authors from the Exercise Medicine Clinic – CLINIMEX in Rio de Janeiro, the survivors had a nearly 10 percent higher Flexindex score compared to those who died.
This translated into a situation where women with a low Flexindex score had an almost five times higher risk of death.
Men with low scores had almost twice the risk when factors such as age, obesity and existing health conditions were taken into account.
Dr Claudio Gil S. Araújo, one of the authors of the article, said: ‘Aerobic fitness, strength and good balance have previously been associated with low mortality.
‘We were able to show that reduced body flexibility is also associated with a poorer survival rate in middle-aged men and women.’
He added that flexibility decreases as we age, so people can incorporate stretching exercises into their routine. Additionally, doctors can incorporate flexibility assessments into a physical health evaluation.
The NHS also advises that improving flexibility can help reduce the risk of injury.
Flexibility, along with aspects such as balance, is considered one of the signs of good physical health.
Being able to move easily can help prevent sarcopenia, the medical term for a condition in which muscle function declines due to aging.
Such muscle weakness can lead to an increased risk of falls, one of the biggest causes of hospital admissions among the over-65s in the UK.
In England alone, over 200,000 falls were recorded in this group in 2022/23. In the same period, 20,000 deaths from falls were recorded in the general population.
Such falls can lead to immediate injuries, such as broken bones. In addition, the immobility and hospitalizations during recovery can cause people to suffer further from muscle weakness and health problems.
The recent research had a number of limitations.
One is that participants were mainly affluent and white, which may limit the impact on other groups.
Another reason is that the study saw a lack of flexibility as an indicator of increased risk of death, but it was not so much about the factors that killed people. What those factors might be, was not mentioned in the study.
A number of other tests, such as being able to stand on one leg for 10 seconds, have previously been linked to increased protection against death.