We hear all the time that we need to take 10,000 steps a day to keep our bodies in shape. But is this really true? The 10,000 magic number is not arbitrary. Numerous studies in recent years have shown that the more we walk, the lower the risk of premature death, whether it is a long walk or short bursts of physical activity.
Research generally shows an almost linear relationship between step counts and health improvements, but each study is slightly different. As a result, scientists are constantly adjusting the results to determine the magic number of steps that will protect us from heart attacks, strokes, and other health problems.
In the latest study, a team led by physical activity epidemiologist Amanda Paluch of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst tracked a sample of more than 2,000 middle-aged African-American and white men and women from four different U.S. cities. A group of people with an average age of just over 45 wore accelerometers that counted the number and intensity of steps taken during waking hours. The experiment began in 2005, and participants were followed regularly until 2018. By that time, 72 people from the original group had died.
The observational nature of the study does not allow clear conclusions to be drawn about how walking improved (or did not improve) the health of the participants in the experiment. However, it is possible to assess the overall relationship between activity levels and health outcomes. Researchers have found that people who walk at least seven thousand steps a day have a 50-70% lower risk of premature death than those who walk less. The intensity of the steps themselves (the speed at which these steps were performed) did not affect mortality.
According to the researchers, increasing the number of steps taken each day has the greatest effect on people with the least active lifestyles – the risk of premature death is significantly reduced. At some point, however, additional steps seem to provide no noticeable benefit – at least in terms of the risk of premature death. “It turns out that walking more than 10,000 steps per day is not associated with a further reduction in mortality risk,” the researchers said.
While the results overall confirm much of what we already knew from previous studies, the new threshold of 7000 steps is undoubtedly good news for lazy people or those who cannot reach 10,000 steps per day for other reasons. “The number of steps per day is a simple, easily controllable indicator, and increasing the number of steps per day can be a good way to improve health,” Paluch said in an interview with HealthDay News. “Seven thousand steps a day may be an excellent goal for many people who are not currently walking that much.”
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It is unlikely that seven thousand is a magic number where all our diseases will disappear forever. It is also unlikely that this number is definitive. According to physical activity researcher Nicole Spartano of Boston University, we will learn much more about how the number of steps we take affects our health in the near future, including new research using advanced accelerometers that were not available to scientists in 2005.
“It is unclear to what extent steps measured by [old] activity monitors correlate with steps measured by common consumer devices, including smartwatches, pedometers, and smartphone apps,” Spartano writes in expert commentary on a new study. She believes that the number of published articles on step count and mortality will increase rapidly in the coming years, as many long-term (10 years or more) studies using a wider range of modern accelerometers are now coming to an end.
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