Which is more important for health: walking speed or number of steps?

Is walking 10,000 steps really beneficial for the body?

The answer is with researchers from the University of Sydney in Australia and the University of Southern Denmark, who have found that a lower risk of dementia, heart disease, cancer and death is associated with achieving 10,000 steps per day.

However, walking speed has shown benefits beyond the number of steps that have been achieved.

The study was published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, and reported by eurekalert.

10,000 steps a day

Co-author Dr Matthew Ahmadi, research fellow at Charles Perkins at the University of Sydney, said the message from the study is that for the sake of preventative health benefits, people should ideally not only aim for 10,000 steps per day, but also aim to walk normally. faster.

"Step counts are easily understood and widely used by the public to track activity levels thanks to the growing popularity of fitness trackers and apps, but people rarely think about their pace," said author Emmanuel Stamatakis, Professor of Physical Activity, Lifestyle and Population Health at the University of Sydney.

How was the study conducted?

The study relied on data from the UK Biobank to correlate step count data from 78,500 UK adults aged 40 to 79, with health outcomes after 7 years.

Participants wore a wrist scale to measure physical activity over 7 days (at least 3 days, including on weekends and sleep monitoring).

Data were limited to those who were free of cardiovascular disease, cancer and dementia at baseline, and free of disease in the first two years of the study, at the final evaluation.

Dr Matthew Ahmadi said: "The size and scope of these studies using wrist trackers makes them the strongest evidence to date to suggest that 10,000 steps per day is the ideal amount for health benefits, and that walking faster is associated with additional benefits."

What did the study find?

  • Every two thousand steps per day gradually reduces the risk of premature death by 8-11%, and this applies even to approximately 10,000 steps per day.

    A similar reduction was observed for cardiovascular disease and cancer risk.

  • A higher number of steps per day was associated with a lower risk of all-cause dementia.

  • 9,800 steps were optimally associated with a 50% reduced risk of dementia, yet the risk of dementia was reduced by 25% at 3,800 steps per day.

  • Step impact showed beneficial associations in all outcomes: dementia, heart disease, cancer, and death.

The benefits of walking

  • feeling happy.

  • Improving creative abilities.

  • Increase metabolism.

  • Increased possibility of longevity.

  • sleep improvement.

  • Keep calm and relax.

  • Improve brain health.

  • Bone strengthening.

  • Have a great time.

  • Helping lose weight.