Walk faster, age slower

The "Dunedin Study" has been running in New Zealand for 45 years, following its participants from early childhood to middle adulthood. It was not originally planned that the 1,000 or so children born in 1972 and 1973 would be repeatedly examined. But after an initial check-up at the age of three, in which the children were tested for intelligence and motor skills, among other things, using standardised methods, the study continued: at the ages of 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 21, 26, 32, 38 and finally 45, the majority of them made themselves available to the scientists.

Almost 95 per cent of the surviving (and now widely scattered) test subjects travelled to Dunedin for the study. This time, brain scans and a gait analysis were also on the programme. And with the data collected, a research group led by first author Line Jee Hartmann Rasmussen from Duke University was able to investigate the question of whether walking speed can provide information about physical and mental fitness even at this age. So far, it has mainly been studied in senior citizens. The New Zealanders are still a long way from retirement age, but the scientists were nevertheless able to establish interesting correlations:

• Those who walked slower had aged faster. In the period between the ages of 26 and 45 alone, the slowest 20 per cent had "lost" a full five years compared to the fastest 20 per cent. Biological age was determined on the basis of 19 biomarkers such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels and gum health, as well as the visual assessment of a jury. Walking speed was measured in three variants (normal/maximum/with additional cognitive task) and averaged. The average was 1.48 metres per second, while the slowest group would be a whole 14 centimetres behind a Bernese at 1.21 metres per second. .
• The fast walkers were smarter. The IQ of the fastest 20 per cent was on average 16 points higher than that of the slowest group. There was even a link to the first test at the age of three. Even back then, those who are faster today often performed significantly better in the cognitive tests.
• Ageing becomes apparent relatively early in life. Just as with senior citizens, it has been shown that there is a correlation between walking speed and general physical condition in people in their mid-forties.

So why not look even earlier? This is exactly what the authors of the study recommend for the future, as they see the relatively easy-to-perform examination of walking speed as an important indicator.

On the one hand, their findings do not appear to be entirely conclusive.

On the one hand, their findings seem logical, as intelligence and a higher level of education often result in a healthier lifestyle. And if you go jogging three times a week, you won't be shuffling up and down in slow motion in front of the fridge shelf with the yoghurts when you go shopping. On the other hand, it is frightening that cognitive tests on three-year-olds have already been used to predict how they will walk through life a few decades later: fast or slow, fit or prematurely aged, smart or less smart.

Which makes me wonder what is actually smarter: going full throttle or slowing down? A few years ago, the fastest pedestrians in the world were once located in Singapore. As a rule, it's mainly rushed city dwellers who run into burnout or keel over with a heart attack. And that's not healthy either. I bet there's a study on this.