DYING can be a scary thought, but experts say that your every day habits could reveal if you’re at a higher risk of an early death.
Doctors say that warning signs can actually start to emerge ten years before your demise.
Doctors warned that signs of an early death can actually start to show around ten years before your demiseCredit: Getty
Writing in the British Medical Journal, experts said that poor physical motor function that gets worse from the age of 65 is associated with an increased risk of death.
Researchers looked at seven different functions that might be able to detect if a person would die young.
This included daily functions such as cooking, using a toilet, shopping and getting dressed.
Other measures were how long it takes to get up from a chair, walking speed and grip strength.
The experts explained that early detection in changes to motor function could offer “opportunities for prevention and targeted interventions”.
It’s unclear what said interventions would be as each patient would differ as to what they would need.
“Despite the focus on death as an outcome in these analyses, our goal should always be to add life to years, not just years to life”, they added.
The 7 signs you’re at risk of dying young
Doctors studied the behaviours of thousands of patients to assess their risk of dying young.
Here are the seven factors they looked at which could determine a person’s early death.
- Time it takes to get up from a chair
- Walking speed
- Grip strength
- Getting dressed
- Using the toilet
- Going shopping for food
- Cooking
The experts looked at data from 6,000 people aged between 35-55 years in 1985-88, focusing on the impact of social, behavioural, and biological factors on long term health.
They then looked at the data in 2007 and 2016 and measured participants on a number of things, including daily living and other skills such as grip strength.
Deaths from all causes were then recorded up to October 2019.
In order to make the data fair, the experts took into account other potential factors of influence such as underlying health issues.
They found that poorer motor function was associated with an increased mortality risk of 22 per cent for walking speed, 15 per cent for grip strength and 14 per cent for timed chair rises.
When it comes to daily activities such as cooking and food shopping, difficulties doing activities like this increased by 30 per cent.
The assessments in later life showed that these factors became larger determinations of death, the older participants got.
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The experts said there were different patterns of behaviour in those who died and in those who survived.
For example, participants who died had poorer chair rise times than those who survived, ten years before their death.
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Seven years before death they also reported poorer self-functions and four years before death they reported struggling with daily activities.
The experts added that the study “adds to the sparse literature on terminal decline in motor function and, to our knowledge, is the first to examine terminal and age related long term trajectories of multiple measures of motor function.”