You don't need to take a lot of steps each day to lower your risk of death

Scientists have found that walking each day is important to keeping your body healthy. But did you know that you don't need to take as many steps as previous research has suggested?

According to an August 2023 study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, the number of steps you need to take to lower your risk of death is fewer than we thought.

Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash

Walking has long been thought to be a cure for most ailments and its benefits are widely known among those whose business it is to understand what makes humans healthy. 

Previous research has shown that walking is just about one of the best things someone can do to improve and maintain their overall health according to Better Health Channel. 

Walking can increase your cardiovascular fitness while also maintaining your bones and increasing your endurance and strength, not to mention its effects on reducing your weight.

With all that in mind, you might think you’d have to walk for miles in order to see benefits to your health but a new study suggests it doesn’t take a lot of steps to help you get healthier. 

Researchers recently discovered that you only need to take 3967 steps a day in order to reduce your overall risk of dying from any cause according to a press release on the new research. 

Moreover, the researchers also found that you only need to walk a measly 2337 steps a day to reduce your risk of dying from any heart-related illness or cardiovascular disease.  

The study also revealed that the more you walk the more benefits you’ll gain from moving your body, so if you're already getting more than 2337 steps a ay you're doing great!

For example, the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease continues to decrease at a significant rate for every 500 to 1000 steps you add to your walks, the study reported. 

Adding steps at 1000 increments led to a 15% decrease in all-cause mortality and when steps were added at 500 increments it was associated with a 7% decrease in death via cardiovascular disease according to the study’s authors. 

“Our study confirms that the more you walk, the better,” said Maciej Banach, Professor of Cardiology at the Medical University of Lodz, in a statement on the research. 

Banach was the lead author of the study and added that his findings applied to men and women regardless of their age as well as irrespective of the climate they lived in. 

“In a world where we have more and more advanced drugs to target specific conditions such as cardiovascular disease, I believe we should always emphasize lifestyle changes, including diet and exercise,” Banach explained.

Banach continued by saying that lifestyle changes were the “main hero” of his study and added that walking might be as good, or even more effective at reducing cardiovascular disease and prolonging lives, than advanced drug solutions.

One of the main strengths of Banach’s study was that it was a meta-analysis that looked at other studies which covered data on upwards of 16,000 steps a day, making it one of the largest studies of its kind according to the press release on the new research.

Unfortunately, one of the main limitations of the study was that it was composed mostly of observational data and thus couldn’t prove the link between increased steps and the reduction in risk of death according to the press release on the study. 

However, the study was still an important contribution to our scientific knowledge about the power of walking and maybe it will be enough to encourage some people to hit the milestone of roughly 4000 steps a day.