Unable to do one-leg stand for 10 secs? Study says risk of early death

CHENNAI: According to a recent research, the ability to balance on one leg can give valuable insights about one’s health at later stages of life. For middle-aged person or senior citizen who are not able to stand on one leg for more than 10 seconds, the chances of dying in a decade are twice than those people who can do it, according to reports.

This 12-years research study which shows the relation between balance and mortality, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, has been carried out by a group of experts from the US, UK, Finland, Australia and Brazil.

For the study carried out from 2008 to 2020, led by Dr Claudio Gil Araujo of the Clinimex exercise medicine clinic in Rio de Janeiro, around 1,702 people who were aged between 51 years and 75 years and had stable walk, were included. In the research, the participants were asked to stand on one leg for 10 seconds without any support with three attempts on either foot were allowed.

Around 21% could not pass the test. In the next decade, 123 people died of several causes. The inability to stand on one leg for more than 10 seconds in adults showed to increase the risk of death from any cause by 84%. Although the research was observational and cannot establish cause, its findings were striking.

The ability to successfully complete the 10 seconds one-legged stance is independently associated with mortality and adds relevant prognostic information beyond age, sex and several other clinical variables. There is potential benefit to include the 10 seconds one-legged stance as part of routine physical examination in middle-aged and older adults, as per research.