7 ways to find out your age: longevity tests

1. Stand up from a sitting position on the floor – without assistance

Stand barefoot, then sit on the floor on your butt, advises the Daily Mail. Try to rise from this position using minimal support. (Have someone stand nearby in case you fall.) Ideally, you should be able to stand up without using your hands or knees.

This test is based on a study of more than 2,000 people over 55 years old conducted by the University of Gama Filho in Brazil – it showed that in middle-aged (50 years and older) and elderly (75 years and older) people who had to use both hands and knees, to get up and down were almost seven times more likely to die within six years compared with those who didn’t need support, the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology reported in 2012.

For a more granular measure, the researchers suggested starting with five points and subtracting one point each time you use your hand or knee for support or propulsion when standing up. Every point left at the end of the test increases your chances of six-year survival by 20 percent, explains the Daily Mail.

According to the researchers, the test assesses our flexibility, balance and coordination, but most importantly, it works because it measures the strength of your body’s largest muscles, in the torso and hips. Our muscle strength is closely linked to longevity because as we age, we lose muscle mass (known as sarcopenia).

Muscles don’t just make us stronger physically, they help regulate essential body functions. For example, muscle fibers regulate blood sugar levels by absorbing glucose from the blood that is burned during exercise. Losing muscle mass means this mechanism is largely lost, which in turn increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in older people, according to Diabetes UK.

After age 50, most people lose up to 1% of their muscle mass every year. By the time we reach 80, up to half of us may be suffering from the serious effects of sarcopenia.

2. Transition from a sitting position to a standing position from a chair

Sit in a straight-backed, armless dining chair with your arms crossed so that each palm touches the opposite shoulder. With your feet flat on the floor, your back straight, and your arms pressed to your chest, count how long it takes to fully stand up and sit back down in the chair ten times.

How it works: A less strenuous sit-to-stand test than the one described above, it also measures core muscle strength and is widely used by doctors as a general assessment of strength and health. A healthy, fit man over 55 years of age should be able to complete the test in less than 18 seconds; a healthy, fit woman of this age – in 19 seconds. Men aged 35-55 should be able to complete the test in 13 seconds; women – in 15 seconds.

3. Test your walking speed

Walk six meters in a normal style at a normal speed and measure the time taken. Divide this amount by six to get your walking speed in meters per second.

A large US study found that people who naturally walk faster than average for their age have a longer life expectancy, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported in 2011.

If you’re 60 or older, your average speed should be about 0.8 meters per second, says the Daily Mail.

If you walk faster than one meter per second, your life expectancy should be significantly longer than average, according to Stephanie Studenski, a professor of geriatric medicine at the University of Pittsburgh who led the study.

A walking speed of less than 0.6 meters per second may indicate an increased risk of early mortality as it “may reflect damaged body systems.” The test is useful, she says, because “walking requires energy, motor control and support—and places demands on many organ systems, including the heart, lungs, circulatory, nervous and musculoskeletal systems.”

Walking quickly can be a sign of good heart health, among other things. A study of more than 50,000 people published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2019 found that walking faster than average was associated with a 53 percent reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease in people over 60 compared to slow walkers.

4. How many push-ups can you do?

Do a standard push-up—lie on your stomach, balancing on your hands, arms straight, legs in line with your back—then bend your elbows to lower your chest and push back (that’s one “repetition”).

According to a study of more than 1,500 middle-aged men in 2019, the more they managed to do consistently, the lower their risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. Doing fewer than ten push-ups was associated with a higher-than-average risk of heart disease, JAMA Network Open reports.

And beyond the magic number of ten, each additional push-up lowers your risk of cardiovascular disease further—for example, if you can do 40 or more push-ups in one sitting, your cardiovascular risk drops by 97 percent.

These figures only apply to middle-aged men, as the study on firefighters did not include enough women to provide reliable statistics, the Daily Mail notes.

Your ability to do push-ups is considered a good indicator of your muscle strength. A separate study from the University of South Wales found that doing them stimulates the release of a chemical that stimulates the growth of new brain cells and may help protect against dementia.

5. Test your grip strength

Ask friends to rate whether your handshake is strong, average, or weak. Alternatively, evaluate your grip strength by hanging from the pull-up bar for as long as possible. For men, 60 seconds is a reasonable goal; for women – 30 seconds.

Men, who can hang for just 30 seconds and women for just 15 seconds, may have an increased risk of premature mortality, suggests a 2018 BMJ study.

General practitioners traditionally use the handshake test when greeting patients as a measure of their physical stability, writes the Daily Mail. Research confirms that this is a reliable indicator. For example, a 2016 study by University College London of nearly 7,000 people found that those with weaker grip strength at the start of the 17-year study had above-average rates of premature death from all causes. And an analysis of previous studies involving nearly 140,000 people found that weak grip strength was a better predictor of early death than high blood pressure, The Lancet reported in 2015.

In addition to being a strong indicator of overall muscle strength (and longevity), grip strength is linked to brain power. A 2021 study by the University of Manchester involving almost half a million Britons found that healthy middle-aged people with strong hand grips performed better on tests of memory, reasoning and intelligence.

Those with greater grip strength also had significantly less evidence of age-related loss of the brain’s white matter – the nerve bundles that allow the brain to function effectively – reported in the journal Schizophrenia.

6. The time it takes to climb 60 steps

Find a staircase with 60 steps and time how long it takes you to climb them. Research presented at the 2020 European Society of Cardiology conference found that in middle-aged people, climbing 60 steps in less than a minute was associated with better heart health and a lower risk of mortality in the next decade.

Lead researcher Dr Jesus Peteiro, a cardiologist at the University Hospital of A Coruña in Spain, warned: “If this test takes you more than a minute and a half to complete, your health is not optimal” and you should consider getting more exercise.

The study found that people who took the drug for that long had a 30% increased risk of death over the next ten years.

7. Can you balance on one leg?

This is the best-known longevity test and is now also considered a reliable indicator of future brain health.

Remove your shoes and socks and place the front of one foot on the back of the opposite shin, keeping your arms at your sides and your gaze straight ahead. Calculate how long you can stand like this (try this three times and use your average time as an estimate).

People who cannot stand on one leg for ten seconds in middle or later life have an almost doubled average risk of death over the next ten years, a global study of 1,702 people found last year.

Those who scored the worst – holding an average of just two seconds or less – were three times more likely to die over the next 13 years than those who could stand for ten seconds or more, reports the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Last year, researchers at the University of Tsukuba in Japan reported that the better people perform on balance tests, the stronger their hippocampus. It’s an area of ​​the brain associated with memory, but it also plays a role in our balance, which is why it’s such a useful test, the Daily Mail concludes.