Agreed. One of the biggest reasons why the elderly get seriously injured. A fall marked my grandmother’s permanent hospitalization. One of the reasons why the elderly fall so much is because they...
Agreed. One of the biggest reasons why the elderly get seriously injured. A fall marked my grandmother’s permanent hospitalization. One of the reasons why the elderly fall so much is because they have weak muscles.
Beyond that exercise improves just about every measure of your health, so it’s a good thing to do.
Grip strength gets brought up a lot as an indicator of health longevity in aging. I think Peter Attia brought it up in his book Outlive. I don't think it is strongly causal though. Like yeah...
Grip strength gets brought up a lot as an indicator of health longevity in aging. I think Peter Attia brought it up in his book Outlive.
I don't think it is strongly causal though. Like yeah catching yourself with a railing is a causal example. But rather I think the correlation is that grip strength is a good indicator of well developed practical strength. If an older person is still active and doing yard work, carrying suitcases, etc, they'll probably have a decent grip strength. But carrying loads is also good at building up all those stabilizers that prevent falls.
I have read that researchers often use grip strength in their research (as opposed to, say, arm strength or leg strength) because it is much more difficult to improve intentionally through...
I have read that researchers often use grip strength in their research (as opposed to, say, arm strength or leg strength) because it is much more difficult to improve intentionally through strength training, so it's a more reliable indicator for a person's overall or innate strength.
I think that's what so many people miss. I'm lazy and overweight. I had just turned 40 and was having a lot of back pain and hip pain. I finally started working out consistently over the past year...
I think that's what so many people miss. I'm lazy and overweight. I had just turned 40 and was having a lot of back pain and hip pain. I finally started working out consistently over the past year and a half. I no longer have those aches and pains. I'm still lazy and overweight, but my quality of life has drastically improved. I think too many people set unrealistic goals for themselves and then quit when they fail.
Fwiw, this study only addresses being physically fit in adolescence. Post-adolescence improvements to one's fitness routine (and I'll agree, being more physically fit does definitely feel better...
Fwiw, this study only addresses being physically fit in adolescence. Post-adolescence improvements to one's fitness routine (and I'll agree, being more physically fit does definitely feel better and have benefits outside just "not dying") are not part of what this study is looking at.
I can attest to this. I'm turning 40 soon, and luckily have been pretty fitness focused my whole adult life despite being a huge nerd who hates sports. Most of my friends are constantly...
I can attest to this. I'm turning 40 soon, and luckily have been pretty fitness focused my whole adult life despite being a huge nerd who hates sports. Most of my friends are constantly complaining about getting older, back pain, lack of mobility, and injuries. My body still mostly feels like it did 20 years ago though.
I think its definitely possible to go the other way though. I work out with people in their 20s and 30s that constantly push themselves past their brink, and as a result have injuries that will be with them the rest of their lives. Its understandable if you're an athlete, but if you're just working out for health and to stay in decent shape, there's a happy medium where you'll have all of the benefits and few of the drawbacks.
If I read the article correctly, it's making a very narrow assertion. Basically, being fit in adolescence isn't strongly correlated to overall reduced mortality. My reading is that lifetime...
If I read the article correctly, it's making a very narrow assertion. Basically, being fit in adolescence isn't strongly correlated to overall reduced mortality. My reading is that lifetime fitness is the real goal, which is of course extremely well supported to reduce mortality.
You're right that its a fairly tight assertion, but I want to say it a different way (mostly to have someone correct me, it's an intricate and fine point): the correlation of adolescent physical...
You're right that its a fairly tight assertion, but I want to say it a different way (mostly to have someone correct me, it's an intricate and fine point): the correlation of adolescent physical fitness and reduced mortality isn't entirely causal, because there is also a correlation between the same group and random causes of death (primarily accidents over which participants had no control).
If I'm reading correctly, it doesn't rule out a causal effect, it instead suggests prior studies' causal links are questionable, something uncovered by making a new, thoughtful comparison.
New research from Uppsala University shows that people with high fitness levels in their late teens also have a reduced risk of dying from random accidents. This suggests that the associations seen in previous studies have probably been misleading.
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We found that people with high fitness levels in late adolescence had a lower risk of dying prematurely, for example from cardiovascular disease, compared to those with low fitness levels. But when we looked at their risk of dying in random accidents, we found an almost similarly strong association. This suggests that people with high and low fitness levels may differ in other important ways, which is something that previous studies have not fully taken into account,” says Marcel Ballin, associated researcher in epidemiology and lead author of the study.
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In the study, the researchers leveraged data from 1.1 million Swedish men who were conscripted for military service between the years 1972 and 1995. The men, who were on average 18 years old at the time of conscription, were divided into five groups based on their fitness level at the time. They were then followed until their 60s or until they died. With access to the National Cause of Death Register, the researchers were able to see their cause of death. They subsequently used different methods to study the association between fitness level in late adolescence and premature death.
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“That the effects of good cardiorespiratory fitness may be overstated might sound controversial to some, but the fact is that if you look at the results from studies others than traditional observational studies, a more nuanced picture does emerge. A number of twin studies for example have found similar results. Some genetic studies also suggest that there are genes that affect both the propensity to be physically active or have a good fitness level, and the risk of developing diseases such as cardiovascular disease."
Did I read that right? Being fit not only reduces your risk of dying from traditional health issues but also reduces your chances of dying in an accident?
Did I read that right? Being fit not only reduces your risk of dying from traditional health issues but also reduces your chances of dying in an accident?
Yes but the correlation is tenuous at best. Their conclusion rather is that they didn't select their control groups properly than accept fitness has a -53% accident mortality rate. I'm inclined to...
Yes but the correlation is tenuous at best. Their conclusion rather is that they didn't select their control groups properly than accept fitness has a -53% accident mortality rate.
I'm inclined to believe that.
I could see fitter people surviving accidents better, sure, but not at that rate.
Personally I would expect fit people to die in accidents more frequently - it's harder to get run over or involved in a traffic collision or fall off a cliff or drown while swimming if you stay...
Personally I would expect fit people to die in accidents more frequently - it's harder to get run over or involved in a traffic collision or fall off a cliff or drown while swimming if you stay indoors all day.
They're probably more likely to be in accidents, but the finding here is they're more likely to survive them. So all else being equal, between a NEET and a Fit person, the fitguy/gal survives...
They're probably more likely to be in accidents, but the finding here is they're more likely to survive them. So all else being equal, between a NEET and a Fit person, the fitguy/gal survives more.
Though whether or not that's true this study also wasn't able to independently verify.
This is not what the study shows at all. Firstly, the finding was not that the fit individuals were more likely to survive if they were in an accident. The finding was that they were less likely...
They're probably more likely to be in accidents, but the finding here is they're more likely to survive them. So all else being equal, between a NEET and a Fit person, the fitguy/gal survives more.
This is not what the study shows at all.
Firstly, the finding was not that the fit individuals were more likely to survive if they were in an accident. The finding was that they were less likely to die prematurely due to random accidents. This absolutely does not entail that, all else being equal, a fit person is more likely to survive an accident than someone who isn't. All else was not equal and there was nothing in the study design that distinguishes between frequency of being involved in a random accident vs likelihood of dying once you're in one. The results of study do not establish which of these factors is to blame or even that either of these factors varies in a way that's directly caused by one's fitness.
This is also your reminder that "fitness" in this study means "fitness during adolescence," not fitness at the time of death -- this study was a long one and a man who died in his 60s would still be categorized based on his fitness during adolescence, because that's the associatiom being studied here.
In any case, the authors' conclusion is not remotely close to "all else being equal, fit people are more likely to survive when they're in random accidents". It is instead that this likely indicates that all else is not equal here, despite their attempts to control for some confounding factors, and that a number of significant confounding factors were potentially at play here:
In this study of more than 1 million Swedish men spanning six decades, higher levels of cardiorespiratory fitness in late adolescence were strongly associated with lower premature all-cause, cancer, and cardiovascular disease mortality. However, a similarly strong association was observed with accidental mortality, and not even adjustment for unobserved familial confounders shared between full siblings appeared to resolve this bias. This suggests that fitness levels and mortality risk are influenced by strong socioeconomic, genetic, and behavioural confounding factors that differ between more fit and less fit people. Indeed, there is a well-known social gradient in both fitness and major somatic diseases (e.g. cardiovascular disease), as well as a clear contribution of genetic predisposition. Seemingly, these factors are difficult to address even with measured data on education and income, and despite control for all factors shared between siblings.
The authors consider the possibility that fit people may be genuinely more likely to survive accidents due to their fitness and discard it as unlikely given the magnitude of the effect, since from this data not being fit as an adolescent increases your likelihood of dying in a car crash to a similar degree as it increases your likelihood of dying from heart disease.
Although one could perhaps conceive of some possible mechanisms causally linking higher fitness with lower accidental mortality (e.g. greater reaction speed when facing difficult situations), we deem this explanation unlikely, as the magnitude of association was similar to that of cardiovascular disease and cancer. We would have expected larger associations with cardiovascular disease and cancer mortality than accidents, given the extensive epidemiological and mechanistic evidence supporting the relationships with these major somatic disease groups.
Yes, it’s weird! It implies something must have gone wrong with the traditional observational studies. The observed correlations don’t mean what they thought. What are the real causes? It might...
Yes, it’s weird! It implies something must have gone wrong with the traditional observational studies. The observed correlations don’t mean what they thought. What are the real causes?
It might seem like a setback, but this is just how science works, at least some of the time. I’m sure there will be more studies to figure out what really happened.
IMO this is just another casual link of “rich people die less”. Exercise is associated with higher incomes, and so is living in safer areas with less accidents.
IMO this is just another casual link of “rich people die less”. Exercise is associated with higher incomes, and so is living in safer areas with less accidents.
I have similar suspicions, although I would phrase it as "a lot of good things in life are correlated" and becoming richer can be an effect as well as a cause. For example, being in good health...
I have similar suspicions, although I would phrase it as "a lot of good things in life are correlated" and becoming richer can be an effect as well as a cause. For example, being in good health means you are probably more attractive and can work more demanding jobs.
Teasing out the casual connections is something that would have to be confirmed with more research.
While the authors do suggest socioeconomic factors as one of several things that could be influencing both fitness level and mortality, it is worth noting that they did control for this to some...
While the authors do suggest socioeconomic factors as one of several things that could be influencing both fitness level and mortality, it is worth noting that they did control for this to some extent, as there were sibling comparisons as part of this study. But yeah, I agree that they're probably still playing a big role here despite that.
The fact that their stats show the latter as well indicates that the former also doesn't really hold up that well. Obviously it would be pretty hard to justify the conclusion that adolescent...
The fact that their stats show the latter as well indicates that the former also doesn't really hold up that well. Obviously it would be pretty hard to justify the conclusion that adolescent fitness has such a strong causative effect on death from accidents, but this is established in the same way in these statistics as adolescent fitness's influence on overall mortality. Likely this means that there's some confounding variable that contributes to overall mortality that isn't already accounted for by their sampling. This casts doubt on other studies that use high correlation between adolescent fitness and mortality to establish causation, because they too may have been influenced by whatever the underlying cause of the correlation between adolescent fitness and death from random accidents.
If I interpret the article correctly it says that the fitness level of men aged 18 (conscription age in Sweden) impacts mortality låter in life. But, it also affects mortality due to causes that...
If I interpret the article correctly it says that the fitness level of men aged 18 (conscription age in Sweden) impacts mortality låter in life. But, it also affects mortality due to causes that seem unrelated. They list a few things like homicide, drowning and car accidents that they claim should be unrelated, but to me all these seem to be accidents you'd have a bigger chance of surviving if you are fit. I mean even being struck by lightning is something you'd probably (?) have a higher chance of surviving due to being healthy. You'd have to make the control be something that is equally lethal no matter who is exposed to it, but then it would be sort of a tautology.
Edit: Side note, is it only me that have trouble mixing up mortality and morality when reading?
Mortality is one thing, particularly in this day and age of medicine. But quality of life is another maybe more important consideration.
Agreed. One of the biggest reasons why the elderly get seriously injured. A fall marked my grandmother’s permanent hospitalization. One of the reasons why the elderly fall so much is because they have weak muscles.
Beyond that exercise improves just about every measure of your health, so it’s a good thing to do.
Grip strength. I’ve personally witnessed what ended up being a fatal fall from someone that couldn’t hold onto a railing.
Grip strength gets brought up a lot as an indicator of health longevity in aging. I think Peter Attia brought it up in his book Outlive.
I don't think it is strongly causal though. Like yeah catching yourself with a railing is a causal example. But rather I think the correlation is that grip strength is a good indicator of well developed practical strength. If an older person is still active and doing yard work, carrying suitcases, etc, they'll probably have a decent grip strength. But carrying loads is also good at building up all those stabilizers that prevent falls.
I have read that researchers often use grip strength in their research (as opposed to, say, arm strength or leg strength) because it is much more difficult to improve intentionally through strength training, so it's a more reliable indicator for a person's overall or innate strength.
I think that's what so many people miss. I'm lazy and overweight. I had just turned 40 and was having a lot of back pain and hip pain. I finally started working out consistently over the past year and a half. I no longer have those aches and pains. I'm still lazy and overweight, but my quality of life has drastically improved. I think too many people set unrealistic goals for themselves and then quit when they fail.
Fwiw, this study only addresses being physically fit in adolescence. Post-adolescence improvements to one's fitness routine (and I'll agree, being more physically fit does definitely feel better and have benefits outside just "not dying") are not part of what this study is looking at.
Good to point that out. I was more just randomly commenting.
I can attest to this. I'm turning 40 soon, and luckily have been pretty fitness focused my whole adult life despite being a huge nerd who hates sports. Most of my friends are constantly complaining about getting older, back pain, lack of mobility, and injuries. My body still mostly feels like it did 20 years ago though.
I think its definitely possible to go the other way though. I work out with people in their 20s and 30s that constantly push themselves past their brink, and as a result have injuries that will be with them the rest of their lives. Its understandable if you're an athlete, but if you're just working out for health and to stay in decent shape, there's a happy medium where you'll have all of the benefits and few of the drawbacks.
Absolutely, as "they" say, everything in moderation.
If I read the article correctly, it's making a very narrow assertion. Basically, being fit in adolescence isn't strongly correlated to overall reduced mortality. My reading is that lifetime fitness is the real goal, which is of course extremely well supported to reduce mortality.
You're right that its a fairly tight assertion, but I want to say it a different way (mostly to have someone correct me, it's an intricate and fine point): the correlation of adolescent physical fitness and reduced mortality isn't entirely causal, because there is also a correlation between the same group and random causes of death (primarily accidents over which participants had no control).
If I'm reading correctly, it doesn't rule out a causal effect, it instead suggests prior studies' causal links are questionable, something uncovered by making a new, thoughtful comparison.
From the press release:
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Did I read that right? Being fit not only reduces your risk of dying from traditional health issues but also reduces your chances of dying in an accident?
Yes but the correlation is tenuous at best. Their conclusion rather is that they didn't select their control groups properly than accept fitness has a -53% accident mortality rate.
I'm inclined to believe that.
I could see fitter people surviving accidents better, sure, but not at that rate.
Personally I would expect fit people to die in accidents more frequently - it's harder to get run over or involved in a traffic collision or fall off a cliff or drown while swimming if you stay indoors all day.
They're probably more likely to be in accidents, but the finding here is they're more likely to survive them. So all else being equal, between a NEET and a Fit person, the fitguy/gal survives more.
Though whether or not that's true this study also wasn't able to independently verify.
This is not what the study shows at all.
Firstly, the finding was not that the fit individuals were more likely to survive if they were in an accident. The finding was that they were less likely to die prematurely due to random accidents. This absolutely does not entail that, all else being equal, a fit person is more likely to survive an accident than someone who isn't. All else was not equal and there was nothing in the study design that distinguishes between frequency of being involved in a random accident vs likelihood of dying once you're in one. The results of study do not establish which of these factors is to blame or even that either of these factors varies in a way that's directly caused by one's fitness.
This is also your reminder that "fitness" in this study means "fitness during adolescence," not fitness at the time of death -- this study was a long one and a man who died in his 60s would still be categorized based on his fitness during adolescence, because that's the associatiom being studied here.
In any case, the authors' conclusion is not remotely close to "all else being equal, fit people are more likely to survive when they're in random accidents". It is instead that this likely indicates that all else is not equal here, despite their attempts to control for some confounding factors, and that a number of significant confounding factors were potentially at play here:
The authors consider the possibility that fit people may be genuinely more likely to survive accidents due to their fitness and discard it as unlikely given the magnitude of the effect, since from this data not being fit as an adolescent increases your likelihood of dying in a car crash to a similar degree as it increases your likelihood of dying from heart disease.
Yes, it’s weird! It implies something must have gone wrong with the traditional observational studies. The observed correlations don’t mean what they thought. What are the real causes?
It might seem like a setback, but this is just how science works, at least some of the time. I’m sure there will be more studies to figure out what really happened.
IMO this is just another casual link of “rich people die less”. Exercise is associated with higher incomes, and so is living in safer areas with less accidents.
I have similar suspicions, although I would phrase it as "a lot of good things in life are correlated" and becoming richer can be an effect as well as a cause. For example, being in good health means you are probably more attractive and can work more demanding jobs.
Teasing out the casual connections is something that would have to be confirmed with more research.
While the authors do suggest socioeconomic factors as one of several things that could be influencing both fitness level and mortality, it is worth noting that they did control for this to some extent, as there were sibling comparisons as part of this study. But yeah, I agree that they're probably still playing a big role here despite that.
The fact that their stats show the latter as well indicates that the former also doesn't really hold up that well. Obviously it would be pretty hard to justify the conclusion that adolescent fitness has such a strong causative effect on death from accidents, but this is established in the same way in these statistics as adolescent fitness's influence on overall mortality. Likely this means that there's some confounding variable that contributes to overall mortality that isn't already accounted for by their sampling. This casts doubt on other studies that use high correlation between adolescent fitness and mortality to establish causation, because they too may have been influenced by whatever the underlying cause of the correlation between adolescent fitness and death from random accidents.
If I interpret the article correctly it says that the fitness level of men aged 18 (conscription age in Sweden) impacts mortality låter in life. But, it also affects mortality due to causes that seem unrelated. They list a few things like homicide, drowning and car accidents that they claim should be unrelated, but to me all these seem to be accidents you'd have a bigger chance of surviving if you are fit. I mean even being struck by lightning is something you'd probably (?) have a higher chance of surviving due to being healthy. You'd have to make the control be something that is equally lethal no matter who is exposed to it, but then it would be sort of a tautology.
Edit: Side note, is it only me that have trouble mixing up mortality and morality when reading?