My last post talked about how many walking steps per day are associated with reductions in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. The cited research showed that 8,000 brisk steps per day four or five days per week was the “sweet spot” for significant reductions in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. The admonition was “go walk.”
The results of a new study, published August 9, 2023, confirmed that higher daily step counts are associated with reduced risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. However, the new study showed that significant health benefits begin at lower step counts than demonstrated in earlier research. Any step count over about 4,000 showed significant reductions in all-cause mortality and 2,300 for cardiovascular mortality based on a meta-analysis of cohort studies with 226,889 participants over about seven years. Further, additional benefit was associated with increasing increments of 500 or 1000 steps, additional mortality reduction of 7 to 15 percent associated with each increment. Banach, M., et al., “The association between daily step count and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: a meta-analysis,” Eur. J. Prev. Cardiol. (August 9, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjpc/zwad229
"One of our main aims was to overcome all the inconsistencies in previous studies, where the optimal number of daily steps for health benefits was usually between 6000 and 10,000," Maciej Banach, MD, PhD, of the Medical University of Lodz, Poland, told theheart.org | Medscape Cardiology. "As a preventive cardiologist, I saw that many of my patients were discouraged and said it's impossible when I told them that making lifestyle changes included taking at least 7000 daily steps," he said. "But our study in relatively healthy individuals, not patients, showed even a lower number ― for example, around 4000 ― may be associated with a significant reduction of mortality. … I tell people to start early, be regular, and don't worry about the initial baseline number, because it's important to start and it's important to improve," he said. "Our study showed that if we increase the number of steps per day, every 500- to 1000-step increase might still be associated with an additional mortality reduction of 7% to 15%."
While this new study shows significant all-cause and cardiovascular health benefits begin to accrue at lower step counts than demonstrated earlier, and that significant additional benefits accrue in manageable increments, the goal remains about 8,000 steps per day. Master, H., et al., “Association of step counts over time with the risk of chronic disease in the All of Us Research Program,” Nat Med 28:2301–2308 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-02012-w
The take away from this new study is encouraging all of us to start walking at whatever level is comfortable, keep walking, and increase our number of steps over time.