By Dayne Hudson
The benefits of lifting weights are all well documented.
However, could pumping the iron actually increase our life expectancy?
New research (1) suggests the more muscle mass older people have, the less likely they are to die prematurely.
The cited study involved focusing on a group of 3,659 individuals, which included men who were 55 or older and women who were 65 or older.
They were examined as to how their muscle mass index was related to their risk of death.
WHAT THEY FOUND
Total deaths were significantly lower in the fourth quartile of muscle mass index in comparison to the first quartile. So the more muscle mass they had - the less chance they were of dying.
The studies author, Dr. Preethi Srikanthan says:
"Our study indicates that clinicians need to be focusing on ways to improve body composition, rather than on BMI alone, when counseling older adults on preventative health behaviours."
And according to the studies co-athuor, Dr. Arun Karlamangla:
"The greater your muscle mass, the lower your risk of death....thus, rather than worrying about weight or body mass index, we should be trying to maximise and maintain muscle mass."
THE BIGGER PICTURE
This study backs up the increasing mounting evidence that body composition, and not BMI, is better indicator or all-cause mortality.
But, like just about all studies, this one does have it's limitations, using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which is a cohort study.
It didn't examine this topic directly, so it's pretty hard to determine a concrete, gold plated cause and effect relationship between muscle mass and life expectancy.
However, the findings are important none the less.
In light of this, Dr. Preethi Srikanthan adds:
"But we can say that muscle mass seems to be an important predictor of risk of death....despite these limitations, this study establishes the independent survival prediction ability of muscle mass..."
CONCLUSION
Although we cannot yet take pumping iron to live longer as absolutely 100% correct - one thing is for sure, we're certainly not doing ourselves any harm by lifting weights into our older years, given the whole host of further benefits we obtain.
But one thing is for sure, BMI is a poor measurement of our health - with many people reading this considered obese according to BMI - when they are far from it!
BMI was established before 1980, and quite frankly, is an outdated farce that needs to be eradicated.
But still, the take home message is, keep pumping those weights, because you MIGHT just get a few more years out of your life!
"Stay Fit, Stay Flexed!"
REFERENCE
(1) Preethi Srikanthan, Arun S. Karlamangla. Muscle Mass Index as a Predictor of Longevity in Older-Adults. The American Journal of Medicine, 2014; DOI:10.1016/j.amjmed.2014.02.007
