The health benefits of walking 8,000 steps or more once or twice a week seem even more pronounced for people age 65 and older.
To walk 8,000 steps, or nearly four miles, once or twice a week significantly reduces the risk of untimely deathsays a study published this Tuesday.
While regular physical activity is known to reduce the risk of mortality, the study published in the journal JAMA Network Open looks at the health benefits of vigorous walking alone. a few days per week.
Researchers at Kyoto University and the University of California, Los Angeles analyzed data from 3,101 adults North Americans.
Scientists found that those who walked 8,000 steps or more once or twice a week had 14.9% less chances of dying within a period of 10 years than those who didn’t.
For those who took those long walks between three to seven times per week, the risk of death dropped even further, by 16.5%.
The health benefits of walking 8,000 steps or more once or twice a week seem even more pronounced for people with 65 years old or more.
“The number of days per week someone walks 8,000 steps or more was associated (in the study) with a lower risk of cardiovascular mortality and all other causes“, highlighted the scientists.
“This work suggests that individuals can obtain significant benefits for health by walking just a few days a week”, they added.
For this study, researchers analyzed the daily steps taken by participants between 2005 and 2006 and then studied their mortality. ten years after.
Of the participants, 632 people failed to reach the limit than 8,000 steps on at least one day of the week, 532 people reached or exceeded that threshold once or twice a week, and 1,937 people did it between three and seven times a week.
On average, Americans walk between 3,000 to 4,000 steps per day, according to data from the Mayo Clinic, which highlights that walking as a regular physical activity can reduce the risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and depression.
