Take more steps and live longer

Taking more steps per day, either all at once or in shorter spurts, may help you live longer, according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle & Cardiometabolic Health Conference 2021.

Regular walking is one of the safest and easiest ways you can do for your health. Increasing your physical activity from as little as 10 minutes a day to the Australian Government's recommended 30 to 45 minutes a day, five or more days of the week can help reduce your risk of heart disease and heart attacks.

A longitudinal study from 2011-2015, 16,732 women wore a waist step counter that measured their daily steps and walking patterns for four to seven days. The women were all over age 60 and were participants in the Women's Health Study, a large, national study of heart disease, cancer and other long-term disease prevention.

The researchers divided the total number of steps for each study participant into two groups: Group 1 was 10 minutes or longer bouts of walking with few interruptions; and Group 2 was short spurts of walking during regular daily activities such as housework, taking the stairs, or walking to or from a car. In follow-up, they tracked deaths from any cause for an average of six years, through December 31, 2019.

Researchers found:

• Overall, 804 deaths occurred during the entire study period of 2011-2019.

• Study participants who took more steps in short spurts lived longer, regardless of how many steps they had in longer, uninterrupted bouts. The benefits levelled off at about 4,500 steps per day in short spurts.

• Compared to no daily steps, each initial increase of 1,000 steps per day was associated with a 28% decrease in death during the follow-up period.

• A 32% decrease in death was noted in participants who took more than 2,000 steps daily in uninterrupted bouts.

A prior analysis of the same women reported that those who took 4,500 steps per day had a significantly lower risk of death compared to the least active women.

What are you waiting for, get out there and start stepping!