What Your Balance Tells You About Your Life Expectancy!

Balance is one of the things that make up vitality score in our clinic. There are multiple reasons why it is important and a valid way of measuring how our nervous system is functioning and of our overall wellbeing. Balance is not only important in prevention of falls or when you are trying to do some crazy poses in yoga class. Lack of balance can be a sign of underlying health issues. 

Recent research have shown that people who are better at balancing on one leg after age of 50 are likely to live longer. The study that was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine has suggested that people who are unable to balance on one foot for 10 seconds or more in this age group are more likely to die in the next decade. 

The research also indicated that person’s balance ability can be preserved well into the their 60s and beyond making it a great indicator of life expectancy. 

As we age many things in our body change with balance being one of them. It can diminish quickly brining all sorts of other problems such as risk of falling which is second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths worldwide. Surprisingly, balance is not part of regular health check ups despite mount of research showing it to be a great marker for overall health. 

The recent study involved 1702 participants aged 51 to 75 and started in 2008. Participants’ ability to balance on one leg decreased on average with age and those with weight or diabetes problems were even more likely to fail. The results were quite significant in favour of those whose balance was better. Participants who failed the test were 1.84 times more at the risk of death within a 10 years span than those who passed it. It must be noted that the study found correlation and not a cause and effect relationship, however, the fact that balance is one of great and easy ways of measuring our overall health and fitness remains. 

Balance can be affected by many things: spinal subluxations, long term alcohol use which can lead to cerebellar changes, vertigo and other inner ear issues and many more.  Regardless of the cause, performing the one leg balance test is a good feedback for the person of what their overall health and fitness is. 

The researches conducting the study suggest that people perform the one leg balance test every morning while brushing their teeth and treat it as barometer of their well-being. The aim should be trying to balance on one leg for minimum 15 seconds. Although the study focused on 50+ age group there is nothing stopping anyone of any age to try that at home but aiming for longer period of balancing on one leg and you can challenge yourself with keeping your eyes closed. 

There are many other health indicators that can be easily performed such as grip strength (which we again measure in the clinic), walking speed or speed and ease with which we are able to get out of a chair. In the clinic we perform series of tests that measure how well your nervous system is functioning and how well your overall health and fitness is because we believe that you don’t need to wait until problem occurs and then try to fix it. We want you to be in the optimal health so that you don’t need to worry  about problems occurring and if they do, you are set for speedy recovery. 

If you would like to get check please follow us on Facebook and Instagram and get yourself booked in for one of our screening days or an initial consultation.