Simply sitting down and standing up again without holding onto anything could suggest how long you have to live.
A group of doctors devised the ‘sitting-rising test’ (SRT) – in which you lower yourself into a cross-legged position and then stand back up without support – to measure the strength and flexibility of their patients.
And the group found that people who scored three points or less out of 10 on the test were more than five times as likely to die within six years as those who scored higher than eight.
The test, devised by a group including Claudio Gil Araujo of Gama Filho University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was originally used to test the flexibility of athletes, but Dr Araujo now uses it to show patients they need to maintain their muscle strength and balance and live longer as a result.
Physicians like Dr Araujo say other ways to test frailty can be time-consuming and impractical, while the SRT – which requires no equipment – can be performed anywhere and with little fuss.
In a study published in the European Journal of Cardiology, researched described how 2002 adults aged between 51 and 80 took the test. Those who scored fewer than eight points out of 10 were twice as likely to die within the next six years as those with perfect scores.
A point was deducted each time a person used their hand or knee for support, while half a point was deducted for losing balance.
