The death rate among those with the lowest scores was 42 per cent and those with highest sitting-rising scores, 3.7 per cent.
A test that checks how easily one sits on and rises from the floor could predict the risk of death among middle-aged and older adults, according to a study.
The 'sitting-rising test' -- a non-aerobic fitness assessment of muscle strength, flexibility, balance and body composition -- could add relevant clinical and predictive information to routine examinations of healthy and unhealthy individuals, researchers said.
The team, including researchers from the Exercise Medicine Clinic-CLINIMEX, Brazil, scored nearly 4,300 adults aged 46-75 who performed the test, from zero to five -- one point was deducted from five for each time the support of a hand or knee was used and 0.5 points for unsteadiness in movement.
Over a typical follow-up period of 12 years, during which there were 665 deaths, the study, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, found a ‘continuous trend for higher mortality with low SRT (sitting-rising test) scores’.
The death rate among those with the lowest scores was 42 per cent and those with highest sitting-rising scores, 3.7 per cent.
Comparing the two groups, the one with lowest scores were analysed to be at an almost a 300 per cent higher chance of death due to natural cause and 500 per cent higher chance of death due to cardiovascular reasons.
‘Non-aerobic physical fitness, as assessed by the SRT, was a significant predictor of natural and (cardiovascular) mortality in the 46-75 year old participants,’ the authors wrote.
They added, ‘The death rate was 3.7 per cent for those having (a test) score of 10, tripled for 11.1 per cent with a score of 8 and dramatically increased by 42.1 per cent in the 10 per cent of participants with the lowest score (0-4)."
While studies have measured non-aerobic fitness for predicting health outcomes, typically one component is tested in isolation or multiple tests are used to assess the main components of non-aerobic fitness, the researchers said.
Further, some of these tests depicted situations not part of everyday life, including the five times or 30-second sit-and-stand (as fast as possible) or hitting maximum push-ups with a metronome set at 80 beats a minute, they added.
In the last 25 years, the sitting-rising test has been applied in varied settings across diverse sections of society -- children, adolescents and adults -- and is possibly the simplest, most complete non-aerobic fitness tool to assess all of its components together, the authors said.
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