u/hundredhealth

I was always pretty healthy, studied exercise science and nutrition in college and was very active in the gym. I never was much for going to the doctors (literally 10 year gap). I'm 36, 2 babies and nowhere near as clean of a diet that I used to have nor time for the gym, and my dad's sudden death did lead to some increased drinking for the pain, I've been better at limiting the drinking as of late.

My dad (my best friend) recently dying out of nowhere at 60 was a huge wake up call. I thought since I was in shape heart disease wouldn't be an issue for me like it was my dad, grandpa, uncle and great grandpa but now I'm actually worried.

Almost all my biomarkers came back healthy... except my heart, go figure.

What do I do now to clean up my heart?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

A 2023 study followed 1,275 older adults for 8 years and compared their grip strength to three DNA-methylation aging clocks (tests that estimate your biological age from chemical markers on your DNA instead of your birthday).

Weaker grip lined up with faster aging on all three. And baseline grip predicted it years later, not just same day.

The methylation panels run $300–$500. A grip dynamometer is $30, a pickle jar in your pantry is basically free. They all point to the same thing.

How I interpret the results:

- Association, not causation. Grip doesn't cause aging. It reflects muscle, activity, inflammation, metabolic and neuro function. Grip is the readout, not the lever.

- Older cohort (avg ~70). Strongest evidence in that group.

- The mechanism is still unclear.

It's like the ApoB principle. One number that costs almost nothing and tells you where to dig. Not a diagnosis but a starting point.

That being said, how's everyone's grip holding up? Struggling to open the pickle jar?

(Peterson et al., J Cachexia Sarcopenia Muscle, 2023)

Did you know the 10,000 steps rule was basically a pedometer ad?

The number traces back to a Japanese pedometer from the 1960s called manpo-kei, which basically means “10,000 step meter.” Yamasa marketed it around 1965, around the Tokyo Olympics era.

The number wasn’t originally some magic threshold from exercise physiology. It was a clean, memorable number that sold pedometers.

Here's what the data says - 2,110 middle-aged adults, average age around 45, accelerometer-measured steps, and about 10.8 years of follow-up.

The main finding - People getting at least 7,000 steps/day had about 50-70% lower all-cause mortality risk compared with people under 7,000.

What's interesting was that the benefit seemed to flatten around 10,000.

So going from low steps to 7,000 looked like a big deal.

Going from 7,000 to 10,000 looked smaller.

Above 10,000, there wasn’t much extra anything.

Kinda crazy that fast walking vs slower walking mattered less than total steps.    

Long story short:

If you’re at 3-4k steps, getting to 7k is probably worth caring about.

If you’re around 7-8k, you’re probably not “failing” because you didn’t hit 10k.

If you’re at 12-15k, cool, but the extra time might be better spent on strength training, sleep, etc.

 Here's my source:

Paluch AE et al. Steps per Day and All-Cause Mortality in Middle-aged Adults in the CARDIA Study. JAMA Network Open. 2021;4(9):e2124516. PMID: 34477847.