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It turns out that when we balance on one leg, any wobble or fall can indicate that the body ages faster than we thought.
A team of researchers from the famous Mayo Clinic in Minnesota (USA) claims: how long we can balance on one leg indicates the rate of aging of our neuromuscular sensory system.
This system is a collection of nerves that connect the muscles to the brain and spinal cord and enable the muscles to move when needed. Deterioration of this system goes hand in hand with aging and can lead to slower movements and reactions.
What did scientists learn?
The study, published by PLOS, assessed the ability of 40 participants aged 50-80 to balance on one leg. All of them had similar indicators of height, weight and level of regular activity. The main difference between them was their age.
Each volunteer was asked to balance for 30 seconds four times: two attempts on each leg, first with eyes closed, then again with eyes open. To see how age affects balance, the team tracked how many seconds each person actually managed to balance during a 30-second period.
The team found that every subsequent 10 years, wobble increased by 6,3 percent if the eyes were open and by 10,5 percent if the eyes were closed. The study also found that the time participants could balance decreased by 2,2 seconds per decade on the non-dominant leg and by 1,7 seconds on the dominant leg.
This suggests that the length of time a person can maintain balance is a true indicator of aging.
"Balancing on one leg requires multiple components of physiological function, each of which typically declines with age, such as leg muscle strength, neuromuscular coordination, and the preservation of sensory information and reflexes," he told BBC readers ScienceFocus Professor David Proctor, an expert on aging and exercise at Pennsylvania State University (USA), who did not participate in the study.
In fact, balancing for 30 seconds does not require too much muscle strength, but requires adequate neuromuscular control. However, with age, the number of wobbles increases and the balancing time decreases.
So what to do about it? According to scientists, balance exercises and aerobic exercise, such as swimming, run or cycling can slow down these aging processes.
