7,500 steps a day for older women reduce mortality – Harvard Gazette

In the world of step-by-step goals and activity tracking, the number 10,000 may seem magical. A lot of evidence shows that physical activity is beneficial for health and longevity, and many wearable devices to track a person's steps each day are pre-programmed with a daily goal of 10,000. However, few studies have examined the number of steps per day associated with long-term health outcomes.

A new study by investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital sought to fill this gap by examining the results over an average of more than four years for older women in the women's health study who had measured their week. The team reported that in this cohort, only 4,400 steps per day were significantly associated with a lower risk of death compared to 2,700 steps per day. The risk of death continued to decrease with the increase in the number of steps but stabilized at approximately 7,500 steps per day, a goal lower than the default target of many items of clothing. The results of the team were presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine and published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

"Doing 10,000 steps a day can seem daunting. But we find that even a modest increase in action is linked to significantly lower mortality among older women, "said I-Min Lee, an epidemiologist with Brigham's Division of Preventive Medicine. "Our study adds to a growing understanding of the importance of physical activity to health, clarifies the number of steps involved in lowering mortality and amplifies the message" extra step. "Even a little more is helpful. "

According to previous studies, the average American takes between 4,000 and 5,000 steps a day. The goal of the 10,000 steps is unclear, but could go back to 1965, when a Japanese company started marketing a pedometer calledManpo-kei which translates to "10,000 steps" in Japanese.

To conduct their study, Lee and her colleagues included participants in the women's health study, a randomized trial originally conducted to assess the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer in women taking low-level aspirin. dose and vitamin E. At the end of the initial trial, participants were invited to participate in a long-term observational study. For this walk and health study, nearly 18,000 women were asked to wear an ActiGraph GT3X + – a research-type workwear on the hips for seven consecutive days, all hours of the day. The team analyzed 16,741 women who complied with the device; their average age was 72 years old.

The women were followed for more than four years on average, during which 504 of them died. Participants in the bottom 25% of walks (averaging 2,700 steps per day) were the most at risk of death, with 275 women dying. Those who walked a little more (an average of 4,400 a day) had a 41% lower risk of death. The risk of death continued to decrease with the increase in the number of marches, up to 7,500 marches per day, after which the risk stabilized. The team also found that for women who walked the same number of marches a day, the intensity – their walking speed or slowness – was not associated with the risk of death.

Due to the observational nature of the study, the authors can not definitively separate the causal link from the correlation (ie, whether more steps reduce mortality, or more women are in better health) ). However, the team took several steps to make sure that the association was more likely to be causal, such as excluding women with heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and the like. Health condition was not excellent or good. The results are also corroborated by previous experiments showing that physical activity resulted in beneficial changes in short-term health markers, such as blood pressure, insulin and glucose levels, lipid profile. , inflammation, etc.

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The women's health study included mostly elderly and white women. Further research will be needed on younger and more diverse populations to determine if the results apply to other groups, especially those who, on average, take more action. Other findings, such as quality of life and risk of specific diseases, have not been evaluated, but will be addressed in future studies.

"Of course, no study is isolated," Lee said. "But our work continues to demonstrate the importance of physical activity. Evidently, even a modest number of stages was linked to a lower mortality rate in these older women. We hope these results will encourage people for whom 10,000 steps a day may seem inaccessible. "

Funding for this work was provided by the National Institutes of Health.A co-author of the document has received personal and travel expenses from ActiGraph outside of the submitted work and is a member of its scientific advisory board; the device used in this study was selected in 2009, prior to its involvement in the study.