The much-touted advice to take 10,000 steps a day for our health has been accused of lacking evidence, but new research suggests that hitting this target has serious benefits
Taking between 9000 and 10,000 steps per day appears to reduce the risk of an early death or heart-related event, adding legitimacy to an idea that has been criticised as unscientific.
The exact origin of the commonly held belief that people should aim for 10,000 steps a day is unclear, but it has been linked to a marketing campaign promoting pedometers in Japan.The team analysed more than 72,000 participants, with an average age of 61, in the UK Biobank study as they wore a movement-tracking accelerometer on their wrists for one week. “We were able to quantify daily steps,” says Ahmadi.
The participants were then tracked for an average of just under seven years, during which time 1633 people died and 6190-related events occurred. After adjusting for other factors that could influence the risk of illness or death over that period – such as diet quality, smoking status and doing other forms of exercise – the researchers calculated that the optimal number of steps per day appears to be between 9000 and 10,000, with the benefits then starting to tail off.
“This paper helps the field take a great stride forward, pardon the pun, in refining the science that underpins physical activity and sedentary time guidelines,” saysat Loughborough University in the UK. “It does appear to support the notion that the originally non-evidence based 10,000 steps target may indeed be about right.
The researchers also didn’t consider the number of steps taken per minute. “It may be that around 6000 steps performed at a higher cadence may be just as health protective as 10,000 slower steps,” says Esliger.
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