30 May 2019
Walking Prolongs Life
I try to reach 10,000 steps per day as recommended for health and prolong life, but it is not easy to do that every day! Then, How many steps/day of walking will prolong life? I did not know the answer, but I knew that any few steps are better for health than none.
Today I found the answer for the above question in a study published on May 29, 2019 in the journal of American medical association – internal medicine. The answer is as low as 4400 steps/day is proven to prolong life in a study on older women.
Nearly 17,000 older women wore a hip accelerometer for 7 days to collect step counts. Participants were then divided into quartiles based on the median number of daily steps: 2700, 4400, 5900, and 8400.
During roughly 4 years' follow-up, 3% of the women died. After adjustment for confounders like age, smoking, and comorbid conditions, women in the three higher quartiles of daily steps had significantly lower mortality risks — reductions of 46%, 53%, and 66%, respectively — than those in the lowest quartile i.e. median number of daily steps: 2700. Mortality declined with increasing steps until roughly 7500 steps per day, at which point the benefit leveled off.
The researchers conclude, "These findings may serve as encouragement to the many sedentary individuals for whom 10,000 steps/d pose an unattainable goal."
Reference: AMA Intern Med. Published online May 29, 2019. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.0899