According to the World Health Organization, physical inactivity causes approximately 3.2 million annual deaths. As a result, walking is touted as the easiest way to stay active, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommending that you aim for 10,000 steps a day.
While smartwatches and pedometers have been manufactured to help you achieve this goal, a new study has suggested that we can still reap the benefits of physical activity, without having to reach 10, 000 steps. In fact, a mere 4, 000 steps may be enough to boost your health.
How Many Steps for Better Health?
Ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, a marketing campaign was released to promote a pedometer. As the Japanese character for 10,000 looks like a person walking, the pedometer was referred to as the Manpo-kei or 10,000 steps meters, and the 10,000 steps a day idea was born.
Now, while reaching 10,000 steps a day is a good thing, it can be hard for everyone to reach this goal. This then raises the question of how many steps are enough to stay healthy and reduce the risk for chronic conditions.
To determine the association between daily steps and heart disease mortality, researchers analyzed the data of 226,889 people, 49% female with a median age of 64 years old, from 17 studies performed in Australia, Japan, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each participant was either considered generally healthy or had a possible risk factor for cardiovascular disease, like high blood pressure.
The researchers then looked at how many steps the participants took, typically in a weeklong period, and followed up on their health outcomes after around seven years.
4000 Steps Enough To Boost Longevity
According to the study, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, walking 3,967 steps each day can reduce your risk of dying from any cause, and walking 2,337 steps a day can reduce your risk of dying from heart disease.
If that’s not enough, adding 1000 steps to your walk was associated with a 15% reduced risk of dying from any cause, and every added 500 steps was linked to a 7% reduced risk of dying from heart disease.
“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, sub-tropical or sub-polar region of the world, or a region with a mixture of climates.”, said Professor Maciej Banach, lead researcher and cardiologist.
While 4,000 steps a day was linked to a reduced risk of all-cause mortality, the biggest risk reduction was found amongst people who walked more than 7,000 steps a day, with the most benefit occurring at about 20,000 steps.
How To Maximize Your Steps For Better Health
While 4,000 steps a day does seem like an easier goal, it should be noted that the study was not only observational. The report also failed to definitively prove whether walking 4,000 steps was enough to reduce the risk of developing diseases and dying. As such, it’s possible that people who are healthy may already be getting more steps throughout the day.
Nonetheless, any physical activity is always a bonus for your health, and the more steps you take, the more your health will thank you. So, how can you improve your daily step count?
The Mayo Clinic offers the following tips to boost your step game:
- Take the stairs
- Walk your dog
- Take a walk whilst waiting for an appointment
- Park farther away
- If you can, try walking during phone meetings
- Schedule walks
References
Banach, M., Lewek, J., Surma, S., Penson, P. E., Sahebkar, A., Martin, S. S., Bajraktari, G., Henein, M. Y., Reiner, Ž., & Bytyçi, I. (2023). The association between daily step count and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: A meta-analysis. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjpc/zwad229
