Every Step Counts, But Do You Really Need 10,000?

Medscape

4 days ago

Good news for the sole: Contrary to popular wisdom, people can get the same health benefits from walking 7000 steps a day as they do from walking 10,000 paces, according to a comprehensive review and meta-analysis published in The Lancet Public Health .
'For all outcomes, health benefits continued to accrue until around 7000 steps,' said Katherine Owen, PhD, biostatistician at the University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, who led the review. 'After 7000 steps, benefits either plateaued or there were very small additional benefits.'
Owen and her colleagues reviewed 57 studies and conducted a meta-analysis on 31 of them, examining the relationship between health and physical activity based on daily steps.
The researchers looked at nine different health outcomes: all-cause mortality, the incidence of and deaths from cardiovascular disease, dementia, cancer incidence and mortality, the incidence of type 2 diabetes, depressive symptoms, and falls. Every outcome showed improvement as the amount of daily activity increases, but for most people the benefits tapered off at around 5000-7000 steps per day.
Compared with taking just 2000 steps per day, walking approximately 7000 steps per day reduced all-cause mortality by 47% and decreased the incidence of cardiovascular disease by 25%, of cancer by 6%, of type 2 diabetes by 14%, of dementia by 38%, of depression by 22%, and of falls by 28%.
The study also highlighted that even modest step counts of around 4000 per day were beneficial compared with lower activity of just 2000 steps. 'Every step counts,' Owen said. 'All physical activity is beneficial, but increasing daily steps to around 7000 steps is optimal to improve all health outcomes.'
The conventional wisdom that 10,000 steps per day was the optimal amount has no real basis in fact, said I-Min Lee, MD, epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School, Boston, who was the first to show that the health benefits of daily exercise leveled off after 7500 steps.
'There are quite a bit of data now showing that fewer than 10,000 steps per day brings health benefits,' she said.
Lee said that most studies to date have focused on all-cause mortality and cardiovascular health. The new study expands the evidence to other health outcomes, although the data for some conditions, such as diabetes, are relatively sparse.
Current guidelines for physical activity, such as those from the US Department of Health and Human Services, recommend 150 minutes per week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. However, due to lack of evidence at the time of publication, these guidelines do not include daily step targets.
As step tracking technologies have become more common, and data on step-based activity have improved, Lee wants future guidelines to incorporate step targets.
'I don't believe they should replace time targets, since not everybody wants to track their steps,' she said. 'But they should be included.'
Owen and Lee declared having no competing interests.