Feeling very tired after simple daily tasks might be more serious than many people think.
A recent study from the University of Pittsburgh found that older adults who often feel very tired after doing physical activities are more likely to die within a few years.
The research shows that this kind of tiredness—also called fatigue—can be an early warning sign of deeper health problems. For older adults, feeling exhausted after everyday tasks like walking, gardening, or housework should not be ignored. It may be a sign that something is going wrong inside the body.
To understand this better, the researchers studied nearly 3,000 older adults who were all aged 60 or above. These participants were part of a long-term project called the Long-Life Family Study, which looks at the health and aging of family members over time.
The team asked these older adults to rate how tired they expected to feel after doing different types of activities, such as taking a walk for 30 minutes or doing light chores.
To measure their tiredness, the team used a tool called the Pittsburgh Fatigability Scale. This scale was created in 2014 by the same university and has since been used in many countries.
It helps researchers and doctors measure how much fatigue someone expects to feel from certain activities. People rate their expected tiredness on a scale from 0 (not tired at all) to 5 (completely exhausted).
After going through the results, the researchers found something very clear. People who gave themselves high scores—25 or more points on the scale—were more than twice as likely to die in the next few years compared to people with lower scores. In fact, the average time between reporting very high fatigue and dying was just 2.7 years.
This is a big discovery because many people believe that tiredness is just part of getting older. But this study says otherwise. It shows that if an older person feels more tired than expected for their age and activity level, it might mean they have health problems that should be checked by a doctor.
Previous research has already shown that staying active can help reduce fatigue. But this study adds something new—it tells us that feeling exhausted after light activity may mean there is a higher risk of dying sooner.
There’s also some good news. Even though the study did not test treatments, it suggests that having a healthy lifestyle, including regular exercise and a balanced diet, may help reduce this type of tiredness and improve health.
Doctors could use the Pittsburgh Fatigability Scale as a simple tool to check how tired their older patients feel. If someone reports high fatigue, doctors might be able to act early by recommending changes like more physical activity or better eating habits.
This study, led by Dr. Nancy W. Glynn and published in The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, reminds us all to take fatigue seriously.
For older adults and their families, feeling tired might seem normal, but it could be a sign of something more dangerous. Watching out for this sign and making small changes early on could help people live longer and healthier lives.
If you care about health, please read studies that vitamin D can help reduce inflammation, and vitamin K could lower your heart disease risk by a third.
For more health information, please see recent studies about new way to halt excessive inflammation, and results showing foods that could cause inflammation.
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