How many steps per day do you need to take to live a longer life?

We can walk because evolution has adapted us to do so. Our distant cousins, the australopithecines, began walking upright as early as 4–5 million years ago.

We, too, have bodies that are designed to walk long distances every day. Long walks, especially in the woods, are beneficial to our health in a variety of ways. They help to build our bones and muscles. They benefit our cardiovascular and metabolic systems. They lift our spirits.

The important question for a busy representative of the species Homo sapiens in the twenty-first century is how much walking he should do every day to stay healthy. It is commonly assumed that 10,000 steps per day is the minimum amount of exercise required. Where did this figure come from?

How do we know that we should walk ten thousand steps every day?

In 1964, the Olympic Games were held in Tokyo. The event was extremely popular, which Yamasa company decided to take advantage of. It released the first pedometer (resembling a watch on a pendant), which was called manpo-kei. This means “ten thousand meter”.

Why so many? There is no rational answer to this because the number was chosen arbitrarily.

“There was no evidence at the time [that 10,000 was the right number],” Professor David Bassett of the University of Tennessee told the Guardian. “The authors of that Japanese marketing campaign simply thought that the figure sounded good and would be an excellent indicator of an active lifestyle.”

How was it researched how many steps a day you should take?

Later, many studies appeared that confirmed this myth. Their flaw was their flawed methodology. Researchers simply looked at people who took the ten-thousand-step standard and compared them to those who took three or five thousand steps. In doing so, they measured the number of calories burned, blood pressure or glucose levels.

The results of such studies were easy to predict. It turned out that if you take 10,000 steps a day, you lose more weight than if you only take five thousand. However, no one tested what would happen if you measured other quantities — such as 8,000 or 12,000.

How much daily walking should we do for health?

It wasn’t until the 21st century that studies emerged that put things differently. Scientists began to look at what number of steps would be optimal for maintaining health and reducing the risk of premature death.

The first results, published in the scientific journal “International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity” back in 2011, showed that it is not 10 at all, but about 7,500 steps. However, this number did not penetrate the public opinion, still believing in the myth of ten thousand.

So researchers conducted further, sometimes long-term studies. In 2005, a team led by Amanda Paluch of the University of Massachusetts assembled a group of more than 2,000 healthy men and women. The subjects were fitted with pedometers that measured their daily number of steps and monitored the intensity of their gait. Data from as many as 13 years were analyzed: from 2005–2018.

The study authors found that people who took an average of seven thousand steps a day had a 50 to 70 percent lower risk of premature death than those who moved less. The intensity of the steps themselves, or the speed of walking, was not found to be significant. Importantly, they also found that taking more than seven thousand steps was not associated with a further reduction in the risk of premature death.

Go for a walk, dig in the garden — it’s also good for your health

Now the same team has done another meta-analysis. This time they compared data from over 47,000 adults from Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. It turned out that the optimal number of steps varies depending on the age of the subjects. To reduce the risk of premature death, sixty-year-olds should perform daily between 6 and 8 thousand steps. Younger people — between 8 and 10 thousand.

“The most important conclusion from the research is that even a slight increase in physical activity is beneficial, especially for those who move little “— emphasizes Amanda Paluch.

As other recently published research has also shown, when it comes to physical activity, there are no wrong choices. It’s all about strengthening muscles. Even half an hour of gardening a week can strengthen our muscles, and extend our lives.

Source: Lancet, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, JAMA Network