Journal
PLOS ONE
Volume 6, Issue 11, Pages -Publisher
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027899
Keywords
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Categories
Funding
- New Dynamics of Ageing [RES-353-25-0001]
- United Kingdom Medical Research Council
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [LBC1921]
- Royal Society
- Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
- Economic and Social Research Council
- Medical Research Council
- Wellcome Trust
- Arthritis Research United Kingdom
- University of Southampton
- World Cancer Research Fund
- Research into Ageing
- United Kingdom Survivors
- British Heart Foundation
- National Institute of Aging in the United States
- Economic and Social Research Council [ES/G00773X/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- Medical Research Council [G0700704B, MC_UP_A620_1014, U1475000002, G0700704, MC_U123092721, MC_UP_A620_1015, U1475000001, MC_U123092720] Funding Source: researchfish
- National Institute for Health Research [NF-SI-0508-10082] Funding Source: researchfish
- ESRC [ES/G00773X/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- MRC [MC_UP_A620_1015, G0700704, MC_U123092720, MC_U123092721] Funding Source: UKRI
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Using data from eight UK cohorts participating in the Healthy Ageing across the Life Course (HALCyon) research programme, with ages at physical capability assessment ranging from 50 to 90+ years, we harmonised data on objective measures of physical capability (i.e. grip strength, chair rising ability, walking speed, timed get up and go, and standing balance performance) and investigated the cross-sectional age and gender differences in these measures. Levels of physical capability were generally lower in study participants of older ages, and men performed better than women (for example, results from meta-analyses (N = 14,213 (5 studies)), found that men had 12.62 kg (11.34, 13.90) higher grip strength than women after adjustment for age and body size), although for walking speed, this gender difference was attenuated after adjustment for body size. There was also evidence that the gender difference in grip strength diminished with increasing age, whereas the gender difference in walking speed widened (p<0.01 for interactions between age and gender in both cases). This study highlights not only the presence of age and gender differences in objective measures of physical capability but provides a demonstration that harmonisation of data from several large cohort studies is possible. These harmonised data are now being used within HALCyon to understand the lifetime social and biological determinants of physical capability and its changes with age.
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