What can a handshake tell about you? Culturally, different things. In some places, it indicates confidence, in others, aggression or weakness.

Demographers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis say it can show the rates of aging among different population groups.

In a PLOS ONE paper, IIASA researcher Serguei Scherbov and Warren Sanderson of Stony Brook University did a review of over 50 published studies that focus on people of all ages around the world. Since the measure is already commonly used, data are readily available.  They also claim that hand grip corresponds to other markers of aging such as people's future mortality, disability, cognitive decline, and ability to recover from hospital stays.  

What can it tell us? Their credit card cleared.



Click image for larger size. People with the same hand-grip strength based age, by age, gender, race, and education, means and 95% confidence intervals.  doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0096289



