Do you really need 10,000 steps a day?

The figure 10,000 is nothing magical.

In fact, the idea of ​​doing at least 10,000 steps a day for health goes back several decades to a marketing campaign launched in Japan to promote a pedometer. And, in the following years, it was adopted in the United States as a goal of health promotion. This is often the default setting for fitness followers, but what is it really based on?

"The initial base of the number has not been scientifically determined," says researcher I-Min Lee of Brigham and Women's Hospital.

She was curious to know how many steps one had to take per day to stay healthy and live long, so she and her colleagues designed a study of about 17,000 older women. Their average age was 72 years old. Women have all agreed to bring portable devices to follow in their daily activities.

It turns out that women who do about 4,000 steps a day have a longevity gain, compared to women who do less. "It was pretty surprising," Lee says.

In fact, women who did 4,400 steps a day, on average, were about 40% less likely to die during follow-up period of about four years compared to women who did 2,700 steps. The findings were published Wednesday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Another surprise: the benefits of walking are around 7,500 steps. In other words, women who walked more than 7,500 steps a day saw no further increase in longevity.

"I love this study, which I think is very good news for women who may not be particularly active," said Kathleen Janz, who has studied the influence of cancer. Physical activity on health at the University of Iowa. She did not participate in this study.

Janz, who helped shape the new federal exercise recommendations released last November, says the message that emerges from this study is that older women can benefit from just walking.

"They did not have to go to the gym or invest in a personal trainer or bodybuilding equipment," she says. All they had to do was walk.

And Janz says that's encouraging.

"For me, this study suggests that there are more benefits to light activity than we previously thought," she says.

Of course, the researchers point out, they would like to know more about the effects of walking on other health parameters, such as quality of life, memory and cognitive functions. It is possible that walking more steps each day may affect these results.

Janz also notes that this study measures only walking. It did not measure the things that many of us do that do not require steps, like gardening, swimming or cycling. And it is safe to badume that some women in the study were doing these other things that can also affect health.

And Janz says, remember, the Federal Exercise Guidelines provide for 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week, which includes all kinds of daily movements, not just walks.

So, if 10,000 steps seem out of reach, it may be time to reset these factory settings on your fitness follower. Instead, try to reach at least 4,400 people a day, as well as the daily activities that you like. And respect him.

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