Reduced Risk of Dangerous Diseases with walking just 7,000 steps a day!

 

Still moving: a morning jog along the coast, with 2,407 steps logged before breakfast.

Your Health

A new study suggests that walking 7,000 steps a day can boost your brain power and help you fight off a range of diseases.

This may be easier to achieve in practice than the 10,000-step-a-day target which is considered the norm.

The study, published in the Lancet Public Health, is linked to a reduced risk of serious health problems including cancer, dementia and heart disease.

Experts say the findings could encourage more people to keep a record of how many steps they walk each day to improve their health.

Dr Melody Ding says we tend to think we should take 10,000 steps, but this is not evidence-based.

10,000 steps are about five miles or eight kilometers. But the right distance will be different for everyone, i.e., the length between two steps, which depends on each person's height, gender and walking speed, and people who walk faster will also have a longer distance between two steps.

Looking at the history of the term 10,000 steps, it was also used in Japan in 1960 in a marketing campaign. Before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, a brand introduced a step-counting machine, a pedometer, named 'Panpoki', which translates to 10,000 steps.

Dr Ding says that these figures have been taken out of context and have become an unofficial guideline, and many fitness apps are still promoting these recommendations.

The Lancet study reviewed previous research and data on health and physical activity, including 160,000 adults from around the world.

Comparing people who walked 2,000 steps a day with those who walked 7,000 steps, it was found that walking 7,000 steps reduced the risk of many diseases. For example, 

·        Heart disease: 25% reduction

·        Cancer: 6% reduction

·        Dementia: 38% reduction

·        Depression: 22% reduction

Poles down, valley ahead: a twilight descent along the river trail.

However, experts say some figures may be less accurate than others because they are taken from very small studies.

Overall, their review shows that even a modest number of steps a day, around 4,000 steps, is associated with better health, while taking 2,000 steps is a very low level of physical activity.

Most exercise guidelines focus on either how many steps someone takes or how long they do physical activity.

For example, the World Health Organization says that adults should do at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity each week.

Dr. Ding says this advice is hard for some people to understand, but the current guidelines still serve a very important purpose.

She explains that there are people who swim, cycle, or have a physical disability who can't take steps, meaning they can't walk.

 But she suggests that people should also add in the steps they take as an extra step, which helps them think about how they can do their physical activity throughout the day.

Dr. Danielle Belle, a health expert at Brunel University London, is a health expert. He says the latest research challenges the ‘assumption’ that 10,000 steps a day is essential.

While 10,000 steps are better for those who are very active.

He says that taking 5,000 to 7,000 steps a day may be an easier target for others.

Dr Andrew Scott is a senior lecturer in clinical exercise physiology at the University of Portsmouth. He agrees that the final number is not important.

He says that walking more steps are always better but advises that people should not worry too much about not meeting the target, especially on days when their mobility is limited.

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