Does grip strength really predict how long you live?
For death from any cause, yes, and strikingly well. Across 139,691 people in seventeen countries, every 5 kg weaker went with 16 percent higher all-cause mortality and 17 percent higher cardiovascular mortality.
The line people quote next is only half the finding. Grip strength did predict death better than systolic blood pressure in that study. Blood pressure predicted who would develop cardiovascular disease better than grip did. Almost every page that reports the first half leaves out the second.
And grip is a marker, not a lever. It reads whole-body reserve, which is why it tracks survival at all. No trial has shown that raising a grip reading lowers anybody's risk, so train the body the number is standing in for rather than the number.
Work out what your grip strength meansneeds a dynamometer, free, nothing to install
The eight habits, scoredEight habits carry almost all of the evidence, scored against numbers you already have
Answered by the AskDoc Medical Team · Medically reviewed under our Medical Director, MBBS · How we review
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