A number of studies have shown that physical activity can improve health and provide anti-aging benefits, but few have looked at exactly how many steps people should walk per day to optimize these benefits. Now, scientists have determined that the big round number of 10,000 steps is indeed a big target for a number of health outcomes, but how fast you walk may be just as important. Scientists from the University of Sydney and the University of Southern Denmark studied 78,500 adults in the UK between 2013 and 2015. They wore activity trackers 24 hours a day for a week, which recorded how many steps they walked as well as the pace at which they walked. The researchers looked at their health outcomes seven years later. They found that walking 10,000 steps a day reduces the risk of dementia by about 50 percent, the risk of cancer by about 30 percent, and the risk of cardiovascular disease by about 75 percent. The study notes that the findings are “observational, meaning they cannot show direct cause and effect.” But he highlighted the “strong and consistent associations seen in both studies at the population level.” Participants agreed to provide researchers with their health records, including inpatient hospital records, primary care records, and cancer and death registries. The data was collected as part of the world’s largest number of follow-up study steps in relation to health outcomes. Their work was published earlier this month in the journals JAMA Internal Medicine and JAMA Neurology. Fitness trackers often encourage users to walk 10,000 steps a day, but until now, there hasn’t been much scientific research to back up that number. (Getty Images) Borja del Pozo Cruz, one of the lead researchers on the study, told Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald that the 10,000 step goal actually came from a 1960s Japanese marketing campaign aimed at selling pedometers. The pedometer, produced by the Yamasa company, was called manpo-kei, which literally translates to “10,000 meter meters”. At the time there was no scientific research to support this number, and little has been done since, mainly because it was difficult to collect accurate data before digital activity trackers exploded in popularity. Del Pozo Cruz, who is also a senior researcher in health sciences at the University of Cadiz in Spain and an assistant professor at the University of Southern Denmark, said he and his team were surprised that the 10,000-step mark seemed to be the sweet spot for the best health results. But the study also found that you don’t need to walk 10,000 steps a day to get significant health benefits. “I guess for me at least, the most important finding was that in the first step, the benefits are there,” del Pozo Cruz said. The results showed that every 2,000 steps walked gradually reduced the risk of early death by eight to 11 percent, up to about 10,000 steps a day. The study found that beyond 10,000 steps, health outcomes increased. “For some people it is [10,000] The number may be unrealistic,” del Pozo Cruz said. “The important thing is that every step counts. Just go out and do it, because anything is better than nothing.” Previous studies have supported the benefits of walking, including one in 2019 that found that walking just 2,000 steps a day could reduce mortality rates. But del Pozo Cruz says that while those studies have focused on mortality rates, his team’s study is the first to examine the relationship between walking and health outcomes such as cancer, dementia and cardiovascular disease.

Faster is better

The study also found that walking at a faster pace was associated with further benefits for all the outcomes they measured. For example, del Pozo Cruz said that walking 10,000 steps a day reduces the risk of dementia by 50 percent—but walking at a faster pace can add an additional 10 to 15 percent reduction in risk.
“How fast you walk is just as important, if not more important, than how far you walk,” he said. “For even more optimal health, you’ll do 10,000 steps and maybe 30 minutes of them at a faster pace.” Del Pozo Cruz said that very high step counts — in the range of 20,000 steps and beyond — may actually reduce the health benefits. He added that his team hopes to repeat the study soon in more diverse populations, as the current data set consists mostly of white, healthy, well-educated people between the ages of 40 and 79. Produced and written by Maya Lach-Aidelbaum.