How much walking is good for health? While the question has received varied responses from experts ranging from as low as 6,000 steps to 10,000 steps a day.
But a new study has suggested that walking just 4,000 steps a day may reduce the risk of dying from any cause, while taking at least 2,337 steps a day will reduce risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. However, it added that the more you walk the greater the health benefits.
How Much Should You Walk
Researchers at the Medical University of Lodz in Poland wanted to research on the optimal number of steps that people should aspire to walk daily.
In order to study this, the researchers led by cardiology professor Maciej Banach, collected data from 17 previous studies involving 226,889 people across several countries, who were followed for seven years to assess the health impacts of different daily step counts.
The study suggested that walking at least 3,967 steps a day started to reduce the risk of dying from any cause. On the other hand, walking as less as 2,337 steps a day reduced the risk of dying from cardiovascular diseases.
The researchers also concluded that with every 1,000 more steps a day led to a 15 percent reduction in the risk of dying from any cause, while an increase of 500 steps daily reduced 7 percent reduction in dying from cardiovascular disease. It also added that anything below 5,000 steps a day is considered a “sedentary lifestyle.”
“Our study confirms that the more you walk, the better. We found that this applied to both men and women, irrespective of age, and irrespective of whether you live in a temperate, subtropical or subpolar region of the world, or a region with a mixture of climates,” Maciej Banach said.
The more The Better
According to the study, the sharpest improvement in health among younger age groups was seen in people taking between 7,000 and 13,000 daily steps.
Adults aged 60 years and older, the sharpest improvement was between 6,000 and 10,000 steps a day where there was a 42 percent reduction in risk of early death.
The researchers found that there was not any diminishing effect or risk plateau if the investigated groups walked more than the given limits. They found that the health benefits continue to rise for walking up to 20,000 steps a day or 14-16 kilometres.
Banach said that when people are regular and consistent with the physical activity, they can always expect significant health benefit and live longer.
Why Walking is Healthier
Walking has been the most underrated of all exercises. It has a range of benefits including improving fitness, cardiac health, alleviating depression and fatigue, improving mood, creating less stress on joints and reducing pain, preventing weight gain, reducing cancer risk and other chronic diseases.
Harvard researchers, researching on the benefits of walking, have concluded that those who walked briskly for about an hour a day, the effects of weight-promoting genes were cut in half.
A 15-minute walk can curb cravings for chocolate and can reduce cravings and intake of a variety of sugary snacks.
Walking is also beneficial for those with joint pain as several studies have found that walking reduces arthritis-related pain. The studies also stated that walking five to six miles a week can even prevent arthritis from forming in the first place.
Physical activity is very crucial, especially after Covid pandemic, was the World Health Organization has said that insufficient physical activity is now the fourth most frequent cause of death in the world, with 3.2 million deaths a year. Walking can help protect people against cold, flue and also result in fewer sick days.
