Walking 6,000+ steps daily could reduce cardiovascular risk
Sunday walkers, this study could motivate you to leave your car in the garage more often… Favoring daily walking when possible is better for your health, as we know. This activity maintains physical fitness. by working the muscles and the cardiorespiratory system. However, new data on the practice of walking complete this picture.
Researchers specializing in preventive medicine and physical exercise have observed a correlation between daily walking and reduced cardiovascular risk in people over 60 years of age. Those who usually take between 6,000 and 9,000 steps each day have a 40 to 50% lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease to that of those who take only 2,000 steps a day.
The results of this study were published in the American scientific journal Traffic on December 20, 2022. This meta-analysis is based on 8 studies, which themselves use the health data of more than 20,000 people living in 43 different countries. The average age of these individuals was 63.2 years at the time of the meta-analysis and 52% of them are women.
Dr. Amanda Paluch, who led the research, spoke in the columns of the specialized site Medical News Today. It specifies that the benefits in terms of cardiovascular risk linked to the fact of increasing the number of steps each day are more true in people who walk little (between 2000 and 3000 steps daily) than in others.
The myth of 10,000 steps a day
For people who are already used to taking at least 7,000 steps a day, these benefits are less visible, but still observed. Overall, the results of Amanda Paluch’s team show that for every thousand extra steps each day, that risk is reduced.
Also, people over 60 wishing to reduce their cardiovascular risk can set goals that are more achievable and progressive than the arbitrary rule of 10,000 steps per day. This is in fact not based on any scientific basis. This number of 10,000 would date, according to the magazine The Cutfrom a 1964 advertising campaign around the Tokyo Olympics.
Young and old: everyone must walk
Note however: the meta-analysis of Traffic found no correlation between walking more and reduced cardiovascular risk in younger adults. This seems logical since young people develop fewer cardiovascular diseases than their elders.
However, this conclusion does not mean that they should not work, quite the contrary. “In these individuals, being physically active reduces the warning signs of cardiovascular diseasesuch as high blood pressure, obesity and type 2 diabetes,” says Dr. Paluch at Medical News Today. So get out your sneakers: no one is exempt from walking.
