Scientists Say This 10-Second Test May Predict How Long You'll Live
And while some people turn to psychics or mediums to ask, 'When will I die?' a new study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology suggests there may be a simple, science-backed test to gain insight—one you can try at home.
The sitting-rising test is simple. To complete it, study participants sat on a non-slippery flat surface barefoot with clothes that didn't restrict their movements. A researcher told the participants, "Without worrying about the speed of movement, try to sit and then rise from the floor, using the minimum support that you believe is needed." Basically, people were expected to go from standing to sitting down with their legs crossed, and back up again, while using as little support as possible.
For the study, researchers at the Exercise Medicine Clinic in Rio de Janeiro enlisted 4,282 adults between the ages of 46 and 75. After evaluating participants' health markers, the researchers had them perform the sitting-rising test. Each person's performance was scored from zero to five for sitting and zero to five for rising (totaling up to 10), based on how easily and independently they could complete the movements.Although participants could cross their legs while sitting, they couldn't use the sides of their feet, hands, forearms, knees, or the side of their leg for support as they lowered to the ground or stood up. Each time they did, one point was subtracted from their score. Participants also lost half a point for being wobbly. If the individual completely failed at sitting or rising from the floor without external help, they were given a 0.
After 12 years, researchers followed up with participants and found that 665 had died. Death rates rose sharply among those with lower sitting-rising test (SRT) scores: just 3.7 percent of people who scored a perfect 10 died, compared to 42.1 percent of those who scored between 0 and 4. They also discovered that despite other health factors, low scorers had a 3.8 times higher risk of death from natural causes and were also six times more likely to die from heart-related issues.
While the study doesn't directly prove that a perfect score guarantees longevity, the authors say that health professionals can use the SRT to tailor exercise plans and gain important insights into survival prospects for middle-aged and older adults, whether healthy or with medical conditions.
Scientists Say This 10-Second Test May Predict How Long You'll Live first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 20, 2025
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Medscape
41 minutes ago
- Medscape
Urgent Care Linked to High Prescribing Rates
TOPLINE: Urgent care visits frequently result in inappropriate prescribing, with 12.4% leading to antibiotic fills, 9.1% to glucocorticoid fills, and 1.3% to opioid fills. Analysis of over 22.4 million urgent care visits revealed concerning patterns, including 40.8% of acute bronchitis visits resulting in inappropriate glucocorticoid prescriptions. METHODOLOGY: Researchers conducted a cross-sectional study analyzing urgent care visits from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2022, using Merative MarketScan Commercial and Medicare Supplemental databases representing over 270 million Americans and 12.9 million Medicare supplemental beneficiaries. Analysis included 10,773,218 patients with a median age of 34 years (interquartile range, 20-49 years), with 56.6% (n = 8,640,819) being women, from a total of 22,426,546 urgent care visits. Primary diagnosis codes were grouped into Clinical Classifications Software Refined (CCSR) categories, with visits containing missing or multiple primary diagnostic codes excluded to ensure accurate assessment of prescription appropriateness. Patients could contribute multiple visits only when separated by more than 3 days to allow accurate prescription attribution, with researchers examining inappropriate oral antibiotic, glucocorticoid, and opioid prescription fills for the 10 most common CCSR categories. TAKEAWAY: Analysis revealed that out of 22,426,546 urgent care visits, 2,783,924 (12.4%) led to antibiotic prescription fills, 2,038,506 (9.1%) to glucocorticoid fills, and 299,210 (1.3%) to opioid prescription fills. Researchers found that antibiotics were always appropriate for 58.2% (n = 169,782) of upper respiratory infections and 63.9% (n = 325,632) of urinary tract infections, while being frequently filled for never-appropriate indications including otitis media (30.66%, n = 33,001). Glucocorticoid prescriptions were commonly prescribed, though generally inappropriate for upper respiratory infections (11.9%, n = 306,658), sinusitis (23.9%, n = 253,513), and acute bronchitis (40.8%, n = 190,302). According to the findings, opioid prescriptions, while generally inappropriate, were common for nonback musculoskeletal pain (4.6%, n = 28,048), abdominal pain and digestive symptoms (6.3%, n = 26,143), and sprains and strains (4.0%, n = 18,806). IN PRACTICE: 'Inappropriate prescribing in urgent care is influenced by clinician knowledge, patient demands, and lack of decision support. Antibiotic, glucocorticoid, and opioid stewardship programs are needed to reduce inappropriate urgent care prescribing and support long-term glucocorticoid and opioid deprescribing efforts,' wrote the authors of the study. SOURCE: The study was led by Shirley Cohen-Mekelburg, MD, MS, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was published online on July 21 in Annals of Internal Medicine. LIMITATIONS: The study population was limited to insured patients, which may affect the generalizability of the findings. The analysis was restricted to the most common CCSR categories associated with each drug type, potentially underestimating the extent of inappropriate prescribing. Additionally, the researchers noted that the limitations of administrative data prevented them from elucidating demographic, clinician, or facility details or confirming medication administration. DISCLOSURES: The University of Michigan Institutional Review Board (HUM00127665) deemed this study exempt. Disclosure forms are available with the article online. This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
How Can We Live Longer?
Live on Bloomberg TV CC-Transcript 00:00We spend so much time talking about this and I wonder what's making you invest in it now? Why are we all so consumed with our own mortality? Well, as people all get older, they generally want to live longer. Most people do. I think it's all it's been going on for a millennium. But now we have the ability with medications and pharmaceutical products and lifestyle changes to actually affect how long we live. So in the year, let's say 400,000 years ago, when humans were coming out of caves as Homo sapiens, the life expectancy was 20. Today, in the United States, the life expectancy is roughly 77. But somebody born today from a good zip code, good ethnicity can probably live to 85 to 90. But people today who are already in their 56 years and seventies, what they want to do is live longer. And it's possible now because of drugs, more knowledge about weight, more knowledge about pharmaceuticals, more knowledge about so many different lifestyle changes that one could adopt that you can live longer. And so this series is about how people can affect the time that they spend on the face of the earth. So that's what it's all about. We selected that clip on GLP one, which has been such a fascinating story over the past couple of years. David A cure all. If you ask certain people, everything from fatty liver to diabetes to obesity to sleep apnea. Have we ever seen something like this that's been approved for so many things? And to what extent does this advance our conversation about advancing our age? Well, we all remember when school that penicillin was discovered as an accident and we later learned that penicillin turned out to be one of the great miracle drugs of all time and saved many, many lives, of course, around the world and still does. GLP one drugs were originally designed to deal with diabetes and the effects of diabetes. But it turns out that they have more significant effects in just dealing with diabetes. They can also make you lose a fair amount of weight, you know, in a way that's responsible. But also they can probably extend your life. And now more and more research is being done to see that the show that GLP one drugs can probably save you many, many years on the face of the earth. You can live longer. And so many, many doctors are now beginning to prescribe it not just for obesity but for other related things that people can can deal with. You're no stranger to politics, of course, David Rubenstein. And I'm wondering if it's possible in this political climate we're in to talk about health in an era when Donald Trump is talking about Marjo and RFK jr is questioning certain sciences. If it's possible to talk about our health without bumping into politics. Well, in Washington, D.C., everything revolves around politics to some extent. But yeah, generally the most important thing I think we should recognize is that the purpose of government is to promote the general welfare. That's what it says in our Constitution and what promotes the general welfare better than helping people to live longer and living healthier. And that's what health is all about. We have the finest medications in the United States, the finest health care in the United States. We just to make sure that people are get access to it. And that's what the debate often is about in Washington. Who's going to get access to the health care and how much are they going to pay for it? But what I'm trying to do with this series is just make be sure people realize that it is possible through changing your lifestyle. They're taking some medications you can live longer than you otherwise would live. And that's something that generally people all over the world want to do more than anything else. People want to have a happy life, a healthy life and a longer life. Yeah, well, it's pretty remarkable how simple that is. And you wonder what happens to GLP one's what else they could be approved for if there's an oral version or so forth. But, David, there's a lot of debate in Washington right now about a number of things, including pharmaceuticals, including whether they should be tariffs. As I said at the beginning of our conversation here, and I have to ask you about the way the market is looking at all of this, because you're David Rubenstein, when you see the markets continuing to see new highs in the face of such uncertainty as we've been told. What do you make of this moment, the psychology in the markets, knowing that August 1st is less than two weeks away? Is this market more sophisticated, a better sense of what's real and what's noise than the political class in Washington? Well, the market generally is a pretty good indicator what people are thinking. As a general rule of thumb. I think most CEOs and most large companies today do not know what the impact of tariffs is going to be going to be. And so it really hasn't factored in that much yet. Most companies, many of the companies that my own firm has under our control don't yet see the need to raise prices to deal with the tariffs because the tariffs aren't yet solidified in terms of what they're going to be. But I think most people in the market generally think that tariffs will be tolerable and probably some price is going to be passed along and maybe some others can't. But I don't think most people feel that the tariffs are now a barrier to continued economic growth. That's fascinating. How about the idea of Donald Trump as chairman of the board, having seen him make moves on specific companies? We'll take a look at what he said about Tim Cook, for instance, at Apple. It's time to move your manufacturing here, and I need you to do it by this date. David is the co-founder of Carlisle. How should board members or people in the C-suite prepare for that type of environment? Well, there is a manufacturing deficit now in the United States. There's no doubt that manufacturing has moved offshore over the last 20 to 30 years because it's very efficient to manufacture things at lower prices offshore. There's no doubt that many CEOs are now beginning to onshore some manufacturing. But we have to be realistic about it. It takes many, many years to build the manufacturing facilities, the United States. So it may be some time before much manufacture is going to come back here. But I suspect some companies are going to manufacture some things in the United States they otherwise would not. But some are going to give lip service to it and some are not really going to pay that much attention to it. In the end, I suspect there will be more manufacturing in the United States three or four years from now than there is today, but a lot less than there was 20 or 30 years ago. For YouLive TV
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Medifast to Announce Financial Results for the Second Quarter Ended June 30, 2025
BALTIMORE, July 21, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Medifast (NYSE: MED), the health and wellness company known for its habit-based and coach-guided lifestyle solution, OPTAVIA®, will announce financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2025 on Monday, August 4, 2025, after market close. The Company will host a conference call to discuss the results with additional comments and details. Company participants will be Dan Chard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Jim Maloney, Chief Financial Officer. The conference call is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. ET on August 4, 2025. The call will be broadcast live over the Internet, hosted on the Investor Relations section of Medifast's website at or directly at and will be archived online and available through November 3, 2025. To join via telephone, listeners may dial (201) 389-0879. A telephonic playback will be available from 8:30 p.m. ET, August 4, 2025, through August 11, 2025. Participants can dial (412) 317-6671 and enter access code 13754642 to hear the playback. About Medifast® Medifast (NYSE: MED) is the 40+ year old health and wellness company known for its habit-based and coach-guided lifestyle solution OPTAVIA®, which provides people with a simple, yet comprehensive approach to address obesity and support a healthy lifestyle. OPTAVIA provides unparalleled coaching support along with community, tailored nutrition and healthy habits, and empowers people to master their weight loss journey through each stage of life. Through the company's collaboration with national virtual primary care provider LifeMD® (Nasdaq: LFMD) and its affiliated medical group, clients now have access to GLP-1 medications where clinically appropriate. Medifast remains committed to its mission of offering Lifelong Transformation, Making a Healthy Lifestyle Second Nature™. Visit and for more information and follow Medifast on X and LinkedIn. View source version on Contacts Investor Contact:Medifast, ZenkerInvestorRelations@ (443) 379-5256 Sign in to access your portfolio
