If a person remains physically active and walks about 7000 steps a day, then his/her risk of death is reduced by 50-70%, reports a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). In this study, which was a part of the Coronary Risk Development in Young Adults, about 2,110 young people aged 38 to 50 from 4 states of the United States were made subjects. Of these, 1,205 were women and 888 people were black.
Subjects of this study, between the years 2005-2006 the participants wore Accelerometer for 7 days and measured their average step count. In this duration, they only removed this device while sleeping or while doing some activity that could wet the device. The researchers did a follow-up with the participants of this study about 10.8 years later. During the follow-up period, 72 (3.4%) of the participants had died.
People were divided into 3 categories:
- Low- people who walked less than 7000 steps per day
- Moderate- people who walked 7000-9999 steps per day and
- High- people who walked 10,000 or more steps in a day
Apart from monitoring the number of steps of the participants, researchers also monitored the average walking speed. They measured participants’ highest number of steps per minute in any 30 minutes. They also kept track of the amount of time each day participants were taking 100 steps a minute or more.
The monitoring team also took into account the other health-related factors of the participants like the history of smoking, weight, BMI, Cholesterol, fasting blood glucose level, alcohol intake, blood pressure, ongoing medication if any, cardiovascular disease, etc.
The team found that for people who walked 7000 steps or more in a day, their death risk lessened by 50-70% than those who walked less than 7000 steps a day. However, taking more than 10,000 steps a day was not associated with a greater reduction in mortality risk.
Therefore, regular physical exercise or walking more is associated with the risk of death. But what does the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have to say about it?
Benefits Of Physical Activities According To CDC
As per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), physical activities are good for our mental as well as physical health. Some of the benefits of regular physical activity like brisk walking according to it are:
- Strengthens bones and muscles
- Risk of heart diseases and Type-2 diabetes is lessened
- Lowers your risk for developing several commonly occurring cancers like bladder, breast, colon, etc.
- Improves quality of sleep
- Lessens the risk of depression and anxiety
- Improves the thinking and learning ability
