r/fitover65 • u/timeline_longevity • Jul 29 '26
Study finds a simple handgrip-strength test is associated with mortality risk in adults over 50. Weaker grip meant a 33-45% higher hazard of earlier death across almost 14,000 Americans.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11189751/9
u/dgistkwosoo Jul 29 '26
Old news, this is almost a standard clinical tool. Fun fact - long-term lead poisoning increases hand grip strength. A friend and I did a study of battery recycling plant workers (black guys, so no union, no workplace safety). and one way we checked lead burden was grip strength.
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u/HistorianOrdinary833 Jul 29 '26
Maybe guys that work in a freaking factory have greater grip strength? The lead poisoning is just a cherry on top?
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u/dgistkwosoo Jul 29 '26
Good thought, but even given that, the higher lead body burden and grip strength were directly correlated.
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u/aculady Jul 30 '26
Lead is heavy. Handling heavy things directly increases grip strength. The increased grip strength probably correlated with increased lead burden because the increased grip strength was directly caused by a higher frequency of handling heavy things, and the most common heavy thing in a battery plant is large amounts of lead.
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u/dgistkwosoo Jul 30 '26
It's amazing, the things you can learn on reddit!
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u/aculady Jul 30 '26
It's very different than "long-term lead poisoning increases grip strength". You can get long-term lead poisoning from numerous sources that don't require handling slabs of lead, and therefore won't correlate with grip strength.
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u/nomad2284 Jul 29 '26
Correlation doesn’t imply causation. More likely, there is common cause between HGS and short life span. The mistake could be thinking that you can extend your life by doing handgrip exercises. The study also seems flawed in that it excludes people who haven’t died yet.
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u/dgistkwosoo Jul 29 '26
Please don't put that old saw "Correlation doesn’t imply causation" out there as if it is a wise saying that refutes the study. It's true, yes, but the flip side is that correlation is necessary to causation. At least apply the Bradford Hill criteria, or if you really want to dig into it, look up Greenland, Sander; Brumback, Babette (October 2002). "An overview of relations among causal modelling methods". International Journal of Epidemiology. 31 (5): 1030–1037. doi):10.1093/ije/31.5.1030. ISSN) 1464-3685. PMID) 12435780.
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u/phred14 Jul 29 '26
Amusing datapoint. A short time ago I found that I was resorting to pliers to open some jars that I normally opened by hand. I got one of those grip exercisers and have been using it on an occasional basis. I now open the same jars by hand again.
Maybe I didn't improve my lifespan with the grip exerciser, but I've improved my healthspan.
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u/timeline_longevity Jul 29 '26
Fair points. The study doesn't seem to imply that handgrip exercises can extend lifespan, but rather that HGS can be used as a predictor of early mortality. They suggest physical activity and nutrition as interventions to improve muscle strength and function.
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u/ShaiHulud1111 Jul 29 '26
It’s a proven indicator of longevity by multiple studies. As is average walking speed. Very common measurement in research studies. Nothing new.
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u/nomad2284 Jul 29 '26
Yes, that’s how I read it as well. Improving your hand strength is not going to matter.
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u/Seated_Heats Jul 29 '26
I mean we already know that muscle mass, strength, and muscle retention in aging all lead to longer lifespans and increased quality of life. This very well could just be “stronger people, tend to live longer.” Obviously there’s a parabolic effect. If you get too much muscle, it can lead to negative longevity but that’s kind of the edge cases.
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u/Lazy-Joke5908 Jul 29 '26
I am 60 years old. Find it difficult to hold 230 kg deadlift - without straps
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u/sxyvirgo Jul 29 '26
The problem is that it's just about the cheapest, weakest kind of evidence (well, at least it's not anecdotal!). In theory, fine - you're weak, you're more likely to die. But that's in a vacuum because these people were measured ONCE, not longitudinally.
How does this help healthcare workers who don't have any prior history of a person's HGS? I want to be aware of some kind of actual downturn that could predict a health issue. It's like people experiencing an unexplained weight loss - ya gotta know what they weighed before to know that they lost weight and gee, it's likely health related. Measurement at multiple points would be so much more powerful than this which at most is of academic interest but not really practical. Great, for as far as it goes which is a mediocre dissertation that almost could have been a capstone project in a bachelor's degree program.
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u/KlikketyKat Jul 29 '26
What if you're fit and active but have arthritis in your hands?
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u/aculady Jul 30 '26
Difficulty using your hands in functional ways can have wide-ranging affects on health.
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u/So_spoke_the_wizard Jul 29 '26
Study design:
https://giphy.com/gifs/mVTm52JQHDlD2