[HN Gopher] Stronger hands lengthen your life
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       Stronger hands lengthen your life
        
       Author : HiroProtagonist
       Score  : 20 points
       Date   : 2022-03-25 21:17 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
        
       | POiNTx wrote:
       | No, people with strong hands tend to live longer.
        
       | mmcdermott wrote:
       | This article has a bad "pop science" feel to it. The correlation
       | between grip and survival is probably solid enough, but it's hard
       | to avoid the nagging feeling that people who have a strong grip
       | are probably stronger and healthier overall as well.
       | 
       | The article goes on to recommend grip strengthener and I strongly
       | suspect that better skeletal-muscular health in general should be
       | the goal.
       | 
       | "Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more
       | useful in general." --Mark Rippetoe.
        
       | mancerayder wrote:
       | The correlation is probably between strong wrist muscles and
       | general fitness, i.e. exercise or strength training, and
       | longevity.
        
       | igouy wrote:
       | "Correlation does not imply causation."
        
         | kayodelycaon wrote:
         | But it does get lots of views. ;)
        
       | dugditches wrote:
       | While the website seems very fluff, the concept of hand health
       | can't be overstressed.
       | 
       | Keep care of your hands and wrists. If you feel pain or
       | discomfort, stiffness etc figure out why and fix it. Whether it's
       | keyboard/desk etc change. Or taking breaks and stretching.
       | 
       | Those suffering later stages of hand/wrist strain or wear... look
       | into: wrist straps, wax baths, heated 'wax gloves'
        
       | brimble wrote:
       | OK, maybe there's something to being able to catch yourself when
       | falling, or prevent the fall in the first place through grip
       | strength. But this:
       | 
       | > It's not just bracing yourself. Scientists have linked stronger
       | hands to healthier hearts.
       | 
       | > One study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found
       | that higher grip strength was correlated to lower blood pressure,
       | lower blood sugar and higher good cholesterol levels.
       | 
       |  _Has_ to just be grip strength correlating with activity level
       | and general health, not grip strength _causing_ any of that.
        
         | robocat wrote:
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/4vcxd0/alm...
         | 
         | Submitter said: "EDIT 2: Some of the very low values are
         | individuals with disabilities", "EDIT 4: Grip strength is a
         | decent proxy for upper and lower limb strength, and is also
         | correlated with other indices of strength."
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | scythe wrote:
         | Well, it doesn't have to be that abstract. Muscles in the
         | peripheral limbs, particularly the lower leg but also the
         | forearm, are important in returning venous blood to the heart.
         | In fact, the gastrocnemius (calf muscle) has been referred to
         | as the "second heart":
         | 
         | https://veinatlanta.com/your-second-heart/
        
       | avalys wrote:
       | I am going to bookmark this article as a classic example of
       | reporting so ill-informed that it confuses cause and effect, as
       | described by Michael Crichton in characterizing "Gell-Mann
       | Amnesia."
       | 
       | https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
       | 
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmn...
        
       | cooervo wrote:
       | /r/hailcorporate this guys are just promoting some products
       | backed with pseudo science BS
        
       | DrPhish wrote:
       | That would definitely explain the large numbers of feisty old
       | Judoka I meet around the world. Anecdotally, there seems to be a
       | higher percentage of healthy older individuals doing Judo than
       | the general population, but I guess the unhealthy ones wouldn't
       | still be at it, so it self selects for that trait.
       | 
       | Judo practitioners might be a good population to study for this
       | effect, if you could find the individuals that started and track
       | them all, including the dropouts. It would have common traits of
       | strong grip AND muscle memory of how to fall properly, which
       | could be a confounding factor.
        
       | credit_guy wrote:
       | Also, playing golf adds 5 years to your life expectancy [1]. I
       | kid you not. Start playing today, and you'll live years longer.
       | This has nothing to do with the fact that most golf players are
       | really wealthy, and so they have access to way better healthcare,
       | nutrition, and lifestyle than the rest of us.
       | 
       | Said differently, correlation does not imply causation.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.golfandhealth.org/news/golfers-
       | longevity/?amp_ma...
        
         | baal80spam wrote:
         | Love it!
        
         | treeman79 wrote:
         | Decided to take up golf. Now I can't feel my leg.
        
         | cperciva wrote:
         | They claim that was adjusted for socioeconomic status.
         | 
         | Rather than being a matter of better access to health care etc,
         | I suspect a reverse causation -- people who are in poor health
         | are less likely to go out to the golf course. The same applies
         | to Vitamin D, taking international flights, and reading books,
         | all of which are correlated with reduced death rates.
        
         | qiskit wrote:
         | Thank you. They always make it sound like X helps you lenghten
         | your life. But it's always the case the X is a symptom of a
         | healthy life, not the cause of it.
         | 
         | Strong hands is probably a result of exercise and leading a
         | healthy life which leads to higher life expectancy. Meaning
         | exercise and leading a healthy life is the cause of strong
         | hands and higher life expectancy.
         | 
         | Golf industry says golf lengthens your life. Hand grip industry
         | says strong hands lengthen life. Can't help but be a little bit
         | cynical the older I get.
        
         | rufus_foreman wrote:
         | Here's a metastudy of 26 studies of the results of handgrip
         | training on systolic blood pressure:
         | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6292032/.
         | 
         | The results were that handgrip training for at least 4 weeks
         | reduced blood pressure by around 5 mmHg. Which yes, could
         | lengthen some lives.
         | 
         | Assuming that correlations are spurious is as poor an approach
         | as assuming they are not.
        
       | tj-teej wrote:
       | Bob: "You know I used to think correlation implied causation, but
       | I took this Statistics class but know I know that's not true."
       | 
       | Jeff: "Wow it sounds like that class really helped you"
       | 
       | Bob: "Maybe!"
       | 
       | Credit goes to XKCD
        
       | gurjeet wrote:
       | Previous discussion:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30716390
        
       | WalterBright wrote:
       | I can hang two handed on a bar, no problem. Let go with one hand,
       | and I last about 1 second before it feels like the other arm is
       | pulling out of its socket. Ouch!
        
       | elliottkember wrote:
       | Yep, you read this as being a correlation-causation fallacy. You
       | are being nerd-sniped, and it worked. Don't let that put you off
       | doing arm and hand exercises. I recommend kettlebells.
        
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       (page generated 2022-03-25 23:00 UTC)