Walking for Health: How Many Steps a Day is Optimal?

Recent research has investigated the relationship between daily step count and the risk of mortality, revealing a clear numerical association. According to these findings, it has been confirmed that we can reduce the risk of mortality by walking as few as 2600 steps, which is much less than the commonly believed 10,000 steps. The optimal number of steps that showed the most significant impact was 8800.

 

The research results showed that walking 2517 steps a day leads to an 8% reduction in all-cause mortality compared to those who walk 2000 steps.

 

 

A collaborative research team from Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands and the University of Granada in Spain analyzed 12 international studies with a total of 111,309 participants to determine the optimal daily step count.

 

The research results showed that walking 2517 steps a day leads to an 8% reduction in all-cause mortality compared to those who walk 2000 steps. Additionally, adding an extra 200 steps to reach 2735 steps leads to an 11% reduction in mortality from cardiovascular diseases. The most impactful step count was found to be 7126, resulting in an approximately 51% decrease in mortality from cardiovascular diseases. Furthermore, the most effective step count in reducing all-cause mortality was determined to be 8763 steps, which could lead to a reduction in risk by about 60%. Walking beyond this threshold did not significantly further reduce the risk of mortality. Moreover, regardless of gender, these step counts provided health benefits. However, walking at a brisk pace independently reduced the risk of mortality.

 

Professor Francisco Ortega, the lead author of this study from the Department of Sports Sciences at the University of Granada, stated, "Many people believed that you needed to walk about 10,000 steps to see health benefits, but this was just an idea from the 1960s." He went on to say, "Our study shows that simply walking between 7,000 to 9,000 steps can yield health benefits as good as walking 10,000 steps, with lower risks of injury, among other benefits."