During your annual physical, your doctor likely tests your cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels. But new research published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings suggests that the submaximal fitness test, requiring just a treadmill and a heart rate monitor, could predict your risk of death even more accurately than these traditional tests, in just five minutes.
For the study, researchers from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, collected submaximal fitness test scores (measurements of how the body takes in and uses oxygen during moderate-intensity exercise) from 6,106 men and women who had performed the cardiorespiratory test multiple times between 1974 and 2002. The test calls for participants to walk for five minutes on a treadmill at a speed of 3.3 miles per hour. At the start of the test, the treadmill is completely flat, and its incline increases by 1 percent every minute until the test’s five minutes have passed. At that point, the researchers measure the participants’ heart rates to obtain their final scores.
After tracking participants’ scores and how they have changed throughout the study’s 25-plus years, they examined the relationship between their submaximal fitness test performances and their risk of premature death.
Read on at USNews.com to see what they found!