Do you have to walk a lot to be healthy? Just 4,000 steps a day, or about 1.6 miles, is enough to reduce the risk of dying “from any cause” and the benefits are further increased by 15% for every 1,000 steps, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal European Journal of Preventive Cardiology and broadcast by the British newspaper The Guardian.
Results valid for all individuals
A group of researchers carried out an analysis of 17 previous studies on the practice of walking in more or less high doses for more than 220,000 people. They concluded that all mortality risks decrease from approximately 3,967 steps per day and that for cardiovascular risks improvements are observed from 2,337 steps per day.
“We found that this applied equally to men and women, regardless of their age and regardless of whether they lived in a temperate, subtropical, or subpolar region of the world, or in an area where climates mix,” explains Maciej Banach, a professor of cardiology. at the Medical University of Lodz, Poland.
“Our study confirms that the more you walk, the better,” he summarizes.
An optimum between 7,000 and 13,000 steps
The study specifies that in younger groups, the improvement in health status is more significant when people take between 7,000 and 13,000 steps a day. For people 60 and older, the greatest gains are between 6,000 and 10,000 steps.
This 10,000 steps, which is a commonly touted goal, especially on smartphone health and sports apps, is mostly a symbolic goal to strive for, but it’s not essential to walk that much every day to stay healthy.
The analyzes also focused on people who took 20,000 steps (about 13 kilometers) a day and found that the health benefits continue to grow at such a level of exercise. It indicates that it has not found a maximum threshold above which walking can be harmful to health, but specifies however that the data were limited for people who regularly walk long distances.
In the future, the researchers want to examine data on distance runners and triathletes, seeking to analyze the physical conditions of different age groups with different health conditions.
Public health problem
In societies, particularly in the West, where a sedentary lifestyle increasingly deteriorates the state of health of individuals, Maciej Banach points out that walking can have effects that are at least as beneficial, “even more”, than medication. .
Lack of physical activity is currently the fourth most common cause of death worldwide, with approximately 3.2 million deaths annually attributed to it, according to the World Health Organization. This figure could be expected to increase again in the coming years, with the record of a drop in physical activity since the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to figures from the National Health Security Agency published at the beginning of 2022 and covering the period 2014-2015, 95% of the French do not exercise enough and spend too much time sitting, in particular because they spend a lot of time in front of screens.
Walking is not only useful for maintaining or improving physical health, it also has a positive impact on mental health, thanks in particular to the release of endorphins that contribute to a feeling of well-being and help reduce stress or symptoms of depression.
Source: BFM TV
