There’s a lot you can tell from the way someone walks. The human gait can be used to discern emotional state, diagnose disease, and even reveal whether someone’s a woman’s man with no time to talk (at least, according to the Bee Gees). Now, new research published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings shows walking pace can be an important factor in measuring mortality, too.
Current risk predictors of premature death, like the kinds used by life insurance companies, typically include demographic factors, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels, and so on. However, research into human aging suggests that other measures of frailty may improve estimates.
To find out, researchers from the University of Leicester used data from over 400,000 participants in the United Kingdom’s Biobank, focusing on basic physical measures including walking pace, handgrip strength, resting heart rate, sleep duration, and leisure time activity. According to their assessment, a sluggish walking pace proved to be an even better predictor of premature death than traditional markers for some.
Read more: “Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes”
“Of the physical measures studied, our analysis found that walking pace was the strongest single predictor of death,” study co-author Tom Yates said in a statement. “In people with existing health conditions, replacing blood pressure and cholesterol measurements with self-reported walking pace improved the model’s ability to predict mortality, meaning people were reclassified into a more appropriate risk category.”
It’s good news for insurance companies, but what does it mean for you?
Well, it’s another indicator that staying active is one of the best things you can do to boost your longevity. In fact, another study examining the U.K. Biobank data found that brisk walkers with an otherwise unhealthy lifestyle lived longer than slow walkers living a healthy lifestyle.
So make sure you get out there and exercise, or at the very least, keep a pep in your step. Your body will thank you. 
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