Better body flexibility in middle age was linked to a smaller death risk in a 13-year follow-up, according to a recent international study. The results were published in Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports.
Flexibility exercises are often included in the exercise regimens of athletes and exercisers, but the association between flexibility and death risk has hardly been investigated.
The present study was based on data from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After analyzing data on 3,139 people (66% men) aged 46–65 years at baseline, investigators obtained a body flexibility score, termed Flexindex. This score was derived from a combination of the passive range of motion in 20 movements (each scored 0–4) involving 7 different joints, resulting in a score range of 0–80.
Flexindex was 35% higher in women compared with men. During an average follow-up of 12.9 years, 302 individuals (9.6%) comprising 224 men and 78 women died. Flexindex exhibited an inverse relationship with mortality risk and was nearly 10% higher for survivors compared with non-survivors in both men and women.
After taking age, body mass index, and health status into account, men and women with a low Flexindex had a 1.87- and 4.78-times higher risk of dying, respectively, than those with a high Flexindex.
The study was led by Claudio Gil S. Araújo, MD, PhD, of the Exercise Medicine Clinic – CLINIMEX, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Professor Jari Laukkanen, MD, PhD, from the University of Eastern Finland took part in the collaboration.
Being aerobically fit and strong and having good balance have been previously associated with low mortality. “We were able to show that reduced body flexibility is also related to poor survival in middle-aged men and women,” the researchers point out.
They add that as flexibility tends to decrease with aging, it may be worth paying more attention to flexibility exercises and routinely including assessments of body flexibility as part of all health-related physical fitness evaluations.
Research article:
Araújo, C., de Souza e Silva, C., Kunutsor, S., Franklin, B., Laukkanen, J., Myers, J., Fiatarone Singh, M., Franca, J. and Castro, C. (2024), Reduced Body Flexibility Is Associated With Poor Survival in Middle-Aged Men and Women: A Prospective Cohort Study. Scand J Med Sci Sports, 34: e14708. https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.14708
