Walking to stay healthy. Are more/faster steps better?

With step counters being found in more and more wearable technology such as smartwatches, it’s never been easier to see how many steps you’re taking on a daily basis. An important question still remains though: how many steps is healthy? A common number that is commonly parroted is 10,000 steps a day but what is this based on and does it need to be that many? Does the speed of walking make a difference? A recent study using a large (78,500 people with an average age of 61 years of age) sample population in the United Kingdom tries to answer exactly this! These researchers found that as the step counts went up, the risk for death went down in a several categories of disease such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. The limit to the benefit of walking did seem to level off around 10,000 steps but this might be due to the fact that fewer participants actually reached 10,000 steps. Two other interesting trends also appear in this study: 1) Those who had fewer steps still showed some benefit e.g. walking 5,000 steps reduced the risk of dying more than only walking 2,000 steps; and 2) the speed of walking (or cadence) mattered, with 75 steps per minute producing the greatest associated risk of mortality (this is a very brisk walk).

So are more steps better? Yes, it would appear the protective effects of walking occur up until at least 10,000 steps. Is faster better? Again, it would appear that up to about 75 steps per minute provides some protective effects. This seems to reinforce previous studies that also suggest that a brisk walk is more protective than walking slowly. It would seem that walking is one of the simplest and arguably oldest ways humans can stay healthy.

Dr. Brent Burton