The “sweet spot” for reducing your risk of disease and death is 10000 steps per day, but new research suggests that your walking speed may be just as significant.
The studies, which used wearable trackers to follow 78,500 adults and were published in the journals JAMA Internal Medicine and JAMA Neurology, are the largest to look at the relationship between step count and health outcomes in a systematic way.
Achieving 10000 steps per day is linked to a lower risk of dementia, heart disease, cancer, and death, according to research from the University of Sydney, Australia and University of Southern Denmark. A power walk, however, demonstrated advantages above and beyond the number of steps completed.
The take-home message here is that people could not only ideally aim for 10000 steps per day for protective health benefits but also aim to walk faster, said Dr. Matthew Ahmadi, co-lead author and Research Fellow at the Charles Perkins Centre and Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney.
Associate Professor Borja del Pozo Cruz of the University of Southern Denmark and senior health researcher at the University of Cadiz said, “Our study also shows that taking as few as 3,800 steps a day can cut the risk of dementia by 25% in less active people.”
Key points:
- Every 2,000 steps lowered risk of premature death incrementally by 8 to 11 percent, up to approximately 10000 steps per day.
- Similar associations were seen for cardiovascular disease and cancer incidence.
- A higher number of steps per day was associated with a lower risk of all-cause dementia
- 9,800 steps were the optimal dose linked to lower risk of dementia by 50 percent, however risk was reduced by 25 percent at as low as 3,800 steps a day
- Stepping intensity or a faster pace showed beneficial associations for all outcomes (dementia, heart disease, cancer and death) over and above total daily steps.
“Step count is easily understood and widely used by the public to track activity levels thanks to the rising popularity of fitness trackers and apps, but people rarely think about the pace of their steps,” said senior author and University of Sydney professor Emmanuel Stamatakis.
The results of these studies could be used to make the first official step-by-step guidelines for physical activity and better public health programs to prevent chronic diseases.
How was the research done?
The study used data from the UK Biobank in order to correlate step counts of 78,500 UK adults aged 40 to 79 with health outcomes seven years later. Over the course of seven days, participants wore wrist accelerometers to track their physical activity (a minimum of three days, including a weekend day and monitoring during sleep periods).
Through a number of data sources and registries, such as inpatient hospital records, primary care records, cancer and death registries, this information was connected with the participants’ health records with ethics approval.
Only those who had no history of dementia, cancer, or cardiovascular disease at the beginning of the study and had remained healthy for the first two years were evaluated at the end. Confounding variables, such as the fact that people who walk more frequently typically do so more quickly, were also adjusted statistically.
Even though the studies are observational, which means they can’t show a direct link between cause and effect, the researchers point out the strong and consistent links found in both studies at the population level.
Dr. Matthew Ahmadi says that the size and scope of these studies with wrist-worn trackers provide the strongest evidence to date that 10000 steps per day is the magic number for health benefits and that walking faster is linked to more benefits.
The author says more studies using trackers over longer periods of time will shed more light on the health benefits associated with specific levels and intensities of daily stepping.
