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Eat healthier, increase your muscle strength - and live longer
If you would like to add a few more years to your stay in this world, improve your diet and start strength training. Both lifestyle factors reduce your risk of dying - and when combined, their longevity effect is even stronger.
Study
Gerontologists from Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan used the Mini-Nutritional Assessment-Short Form to determine how healthy the diet was of 333 male over-65s, all of whom lived in a nursing home. According to the researchers, the diet of about half of the study participants was unsatisfactory.
Gerontologists from Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan used the Mini-Nutritional Assessment-Short Form to determine how healthy the diet was of 333 male over-65s, all of whom lived in a nursing home. According to the researchers, the diet of about half of the study participants was unsatisfactory.
At the same time, the researchers measured the amount of strength with which the study participants could squeeze a dymanometer with their hands. This was less than 26 kilograms for 55 percent of the study participants. These study participants were thus labeled 'low handgrip strength'.
The researchers followed the men for 4 years and kept track of which of them died.
Results
When the researchers had brushed off as much as possible the effect of other factors such as depression and chronic diseases with statistics, they saw that both a poor diet [Malnutrition] and a relatively low hand grip strength [HGS] increased the risk of death.
That is what the two figures below show. Click on them for a larger version.
When the researchers looked at the quality of the diet and muscle strength at the same time, they saw that the effects of these two factors reinforced each other. In the 4-year period that the researchers looked at, the study participants with both little muscle strength and a poor diet had a factor of 3.4 more risk of death than the study participants with a lot of muscle strength and a healthy diet.
And yes, that difference was statistically significant.
Conclusion
"Malnutrition was an independent risk factor for 4-year all-cause mortality and low handgrip strength had the synergistic effect of increasing the risk of mortality", summarize the researchers.
"A further intervention study is needed to determine the effectiveness of integrated programs for those at risk for both malnutrition and low handgrip strength, to lower the risk of adverse health outcomes in these older adults."
Source:
Arch Gerontol Geriatr. 2019 Jul-Aug;83:217-22.
More:
Strong muscles lower mortality in people in their twenties and thirties 10.02.2018
The muscles you are growing now may save your life later 10.01.2018
The more muscle you have the longer you live 01.10.2012
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