Are you one of those stressing over your smartwatch readings, wondering whether you have made 10,000 steps by the end of day? Now a new study in ‘The Lancet Public Health’ says that 7,000 steps per day are good enough, achievable and can improve health outcomes.
Analysing data from over 160,000 adults, the study has found that walking approximately 7,000 steps per day reduces the risk of several serious health outcomes, including all-cause mortality (by 47%), cardiovascular disease (by 25%), cancer (by 6%), type 2 diabetes (by 14%), dementia (by 38%), depression (by 22%) and falls (by 28%). The study further revealed that even modest step counts of around 4,000 steps a day are linked to better health compared to very low activity, characterised by around 2,000 steps per day.
Why is this study significant?
Unlike earlier studies, which mainly focussed on heart health or overall death rates, this research is the first to show how walking can reduce the risk of several health outcomes. As Prof K Srinath Reddy, honorary distinguished professor at the Public Health Foundation of India, said, “The level of exercise prescribed in many guidelines is 10,000 steps per day. However like many other physiological variables, the benefit of exercise and risk of sedentariness has a continuous relationship with heart and disease and is not an abrupt threshold relationship. So this large study — of 31 studies from 24 adult cohorts — indicates that benefits exist even at the levels of 4,000-7,000 steps a day. Also very reassuringly, the study reveals that benefits are wide ranging and not confined to heart disease alone.”
Dr Reddy highlighted the protective effect of walking against falls, which can be explained by increased muscle volume and strength, as well as the suppleness of joints and the strength of their ligaments. “This is particularly important as people age because sarcopenia (muscle loss) is common after 60 years of age. Overall, this study is proof of a wide range of benefits that can accrue to adults by increasing the level of daily physical activity from 2,000 steps (sedentary) to 7,000 steps (active). Neil Armstrong might have said, ‘7000 steps for (wo)man! A giant leap for human health,’” Dr Reddy said.
What the researchers said
The systematic review included 57 studies of which 31 studies were included in meta-analyses. So it provided the most comprehensive evidence to date of the association between the number of daily steps and a wide range of health outcomes. Melody Ding, professor at Prevention Research Collaboration, the University of Sydney and lead author of the study, told The Indian Express that step counts are the best way of capturing physical activity. “We already know that physical activity offers health benefits and we have a ‘target’ to aim for when it comes to minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (150-300 minutes/week) based on public health guidelines. However, we don’t have an evidence-based target when it comes to step counts (the widely perceived 10,000 target is not evidence-based), which is a more widely used as an accessible metric than minutes of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity,” Dr Ding said.
For some conditions, such as heart disease, health benefits continued to increase beyond 7,000 steps but for most conditions, the benefits tended to level off.
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