Don’t just sit there, every step counts!
The human body was designed to move, but modern technological advances and the world of work are leading us to do the exact opposite. On average, we walk about 3 000 to 4 000 steps a day without consciously realising it. It takes around 10 minutes to walk 1 000 steps at a regular pace. But how many steps does it take to reap the health rewards – even if you’re a couch potato? Until now, research looking into the ideal number of steps didn’t take into account people who sat a lot.
A few thousand steps a day keeps cardiovascular disease at bay
Research published in the ‘British Journal of Sports Medicine’(opens in new window) concludes that the more steps a person takes every day, the lower their risk of early death and heart disease, irrespective of whether they sit around all day at home or at the office. “This is by no means a get out of jail card for people who are sedentary for excessive periods of time, however, it does hold an important public health message that all movement matters and that people can and should try to offset the health consequences of unavoidable sedentary time by upping their daily step count,” commented lead author Dr Matthew Ahmadi in a news release(opens in new window). A research team at the University of Sydney in Australia analysed data on over 72 000 participants in the United Kingdom’s Biobank. This massive database contains biological and medical information on 500 000 people aged between 40 and 69 years old. All participants wore a motion tracker for 7 days to gauge their physical activity. The average daily step count was just over 6 200. The lowest 5 % of participants averaged 2 200 steps daily. Average sedentary time was 10.6 hours a day. Therefore, the team of researchers considered people to be very sedentary if they sat around for 10.5 hours or more per day. Those who sat around less were considered less sedentary.
The magic number
The researchers tracked the participants’ cardiovascular and death outcomes for about 7 years. After this follow-up, they recorded 1 633 deaths and 6 190 heart-related events such as heart attack and stroke. Findings showed that between 9 000 and 10 000 steps a day lowered the risk of early death by 39 % and heart attack risk by 21 %. “Step count is a tangible and easily understood measure of physical activity that can help people in the community, and indeed health professionals, accurately monitor physical activity,” commented senior author Prof. Emmanuel Stamatakis. “We hope this evidence will inform the first generation of device-based physical activity and sedentary behaviour guidelines, which should include key recommendations on daily stepping.” “The 10,000 mark is a great target to hit, but even if you aren’t able to hit that, still doing any amount of activity to increase your daily steps can go a long way to improving your health and lowering your risk of disease,” Dr Ahmadi told ‘National Geographic’(opens in new window).