As our population ages, especially the baby boomer generation, an interest in life expectancy is growing for physicians. They are starting to see correlations and ask questions about the relationship between walking speed and expected lifespan. The speed is a great predictor of health, especially that of senior citizens. However, after discussing this subject in one of my other classes, I would like to determine whether or not walking speed can predict life expectancy.
Four years ago, there was an analysis conducted at the University of Pittsburgh on this subject. The analysis had more than nine studies with over 34,000 people 65 years or older. The null hypothesis in this situation would be that walking speed has nothing to do with life expectancy. On the other hand, the alternative hypothesis would be that walking speed is a predictor of life expectancy. Some third, confounding variables could include health problems, family history and lifestyle choices. The researchers proved the alternative hypothesis correct. Faster walking speeds were associated with living longer. It showed that, down to the tenth of a meter per second, an older person’s pace, along with age and gender, can predict their life expectancy. The main problem with this study, however, is that they used individual participant data. It is likely that the participants may have altered their data or reported it incorrectly. Also, this study is from 2011, so some of the results may not be accurate today.
In addition to the study conducted on speed and age, there have also been self or secondhand reports linking the two. One article noted the changes that her mom went through in her sixties after she started going to the gym more often and taking yoga classes daily. She says how “the now 64-year-old walks like she’s 44.” This is an indicator that exercise is a way to maintain a quicker pace or improve your slower pace. I find this quite obvious, as exercise has been proven to lengthen lifespan. It does this by controlling your weight, boosting energy, lowering blood pressure and cholesterol among many other things. 
As our doctors continue to search for ways to predict life expectancy and span, it is very likely that they will start paying more attention to walking speed in the coming years. Not only is it very accurate, it doesn’t require any machines or hardly extra time, preventing the spending of more money on technology services. It is also very reliable and can be an eye-opener for the patients.
I think walking speed can reflect the condittion of our body. Since I start working out a lot I can obviously feel that I walk faster than before. From yout blog you quote a study conducted by University of Pittsburgh which use the null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis method anlysis is pretty good. Except Physics influence, walking pace shows more about ourselves’ information. Confident person tends walking faster, according to What Your Walk Says About You: Quick Study, “Drivers (who display dominance) walk quickly with intent and don’t like to stop once they know where they’re headed; influencers often act emotionally, changing direction often.” Here is the link we an learn more bout the secrets of walking pace.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/05/08/what-your-walk-says-about-you_n_1497198.html
Interesting blog post! Like others have said, I haven’t heard of this correlation before. I agree with Kendall that these studies could suffer the Texas Sharp Shooter problem. Perhaps, it isn’t the speed at which someone walks that impacts a person’s life expectancy, but for some reason that data seemed to match up and because of that, researchers drew a conclusion. I think your research lacks a well-done experimental study. Like you said self-reported data can have its flaws. We know, as students in Andrew’s class, that experimental studies bring us the closest to reaching a conclusion. They help rule out confounding variables by directly telling us whether or not the subject group reacted to the change in the independent variable. We would want to know if we changed the pace at which people walk would they live longer. Of course, this sounds like a tricky study that would be difficult to complete because it would be very hard to monitor a person’s walking pace at all times for a long enough duration of time that we find out if they lived longer than other subjects. I think a few case studies following specific people for a long duration of time would be more practical. But, my point is, an experimental study OR a few case studies would help us draw better conclusions as to whether there truly is a correlation here than the data you provided. As you said, I’m looking forward to what doctors make of this correlation in years to come.
Your post is very interesting to me because i also never thought about the correlation between life expectancy and walking before as Kendall said. Your blog post made it evident to me that this could be true and it is quite invigorating to read about. I never thought about yoga and how it could transform the way you walk. I can also agree with your study about exercising boosting energy. I exercise everyday and no matter how tired i am when i go in to the gym, I come out feeling energized and ready to go, so it is important, especially for us as college students to realize that exercise will make you feel better, and it will help us all maintain our weight. As far as the study, it would be extremely difficult to reach patients with the same exact characteristics such as lifestyle, family history, and health problems like explained, but it would be very interesting to see what would happen in a study with all of those being the same in patients. Overall, this blog post is intriguing and helps show the true effects exercise can have on our life-span especially as our bodies continue to change each and every year.
Your post has a lot of good points, one of them being the fact that being physically active can be a contributor to life expectancy. I can see the connection between more exercise causing a person to walk faster, which means they will live longer. Although this can seem obvious, and there seems to be evidence from the one woman who did yoga, this is not enough to form a conclusion. This is just an anecdote and their observations of her improved walking could have been inaccurate. If they wanted to see a change, they could convince themselves that something changed when it actually did not.
There are studies to show the benefits of exercising though. In 1998 a study was done observing men and women aged 65 and older. The researchers looked at how long they lived, and if they were disabled or moderately active before death. From their observations and analysis, there was “encouraging evidence that disability prior to death is not an inevitable part of a long life but may be prevented by moderate physical activity”. (source: http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/149/7/654.short)
Studies like these can prove as better evidence for the claim that physical activity leads to faster walking which leads to a longer life expectancy. Frequency of exercise can be seen as a third (confounding) variable, which ultimately affects how fast a person walks, and many others aspects of their lives, and ultimately their life expectancy. This would need to be proven in another study, which tries to manipulate the variables so only the frequency of exercise changes to see how the other variables (weight, speed of walking, heart rate) change.
Your title intrigued me. I’ve never considered the correlation between life expectancy and walking before, but it makes sense. After reading your blog, I think it is important to emphasize that walking speed does not directly cause a change in life expectancy. It can only be used to predict. Like you mentioned above, exercise and healthier lifestyles are third variables that cause one to walk faster and improve life expectancy. It makes sense that the speed one is able to walk can predict how much longer the have left. I walk exceptionally fast, but my grandfather is old and walks quite slow. The older we get the older our bodies get. I’m wondering if this relationship could suffer from the Texas Sharp Shooter problem. There are many changes that occur within our bodies as we grow older.