Many studies show the importance of physical activity for overall health, including living longer. With this in mind, researchers from the Exercise Medicine Clinic (CLINIMEX) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, wanted to know whether other aspects of health, such as flexibility, could have a similar effect on longevity.
Claudio Gil S. Araújo, MD of CLINIMEX led the study, and his team assessed approximately 3,000 people to learn how flexibility impacts longevity. The findings appear in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports. Movement is essential to good health. It improves cardiovascular health, and lowers the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and it can also boost mental health.
While research shows that cardiovascular and strengthening exercises can increase one’s lifespan, flexibility was largely left unaddressed. This led researchers in the current study to analyze whether flexibility plays a role in longevity.
Flexibility refers to, “the range of motion of muscle and connective tissues at a joint or group of joints.”
It is important to maintain good flexibility in different areas of the body to avoid or reduce pain in areas such as the neck and lower back. When flexibility decreases, this can cause areas of the body not to work properly.
For example, if someone experiences lower flexibility in their hamstrings, this can lead to tight hamstrings.
When this happens, it can cause pain in the thighs that can work its way up to the lower back and reduce mobility. People can avoid losing flexibility with a daily stretching routine that targets specific areas of the body or by participating in yoga. The study utilized data collected from the CLINIMEX Exercise open cohort in Brazil. The researchers analyzed data from 3,139 middle-aged people (66% of the group were men) aged 46-65 years when they underwent their first exam.
At the participants’ first exams, the clinicians collected data on their BMI, vitals, and any health issues.
They assigned a “Flexindex” score from 0 to 80 based on the flexibility of the participants. Each body movement could get a score from 0 to 4 on the 20 areas measured, and lower scores indicated lower flexibility.
The clinicians assessed flexibility in several ways, including checking to see how far the participants could extend their elbows, checking their trunk flexion, and assessing how well their shoulders rotated.
The study lasted from March 1994 to February 2023, and the participants’ average follow-up period was approximately 13 years. After analyzing the data, the researchers found that people with better flexibility levels had better survival rates for deaths related to natural or non-COVID causes.
When comparing Flexindex scores between men and women, they found that women had generally higher scores compared to men. Women had a 35% higher Flexindex score on average.
