We know that it is healthy to take a good amount of steps every day in order to lower your risk of health problems like diabetes, heart disease, and even dementia.
However, after observing nearly 80,000 people, scientists discovered that the speed at which you take your walks is just as important as the number of steps themselves.
In this article, we will explain the benefits of walking at a brisk pace.
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The study
In the largest-ever study of its kind, a group of Australian and Danish researchers monitored the step count and health of an enormous group of 78,500 adults with wearable trackers.
The research group consisted of adults living in the United Kingdom between the ages of 40 and 79 years. The participants wore so-called wrist accelerometers allowing scientists to assess physical activity. The researchers evaluated the effects on health after a period of seven years.
Interesting results
As expected from previous research, reaching 10,000 steps per day reduces the risk of conditions such as heart disease, cancer, and dementia.
Nevertheless, the researchers also discovered something rather interesting. It turns out that the pace at which you walk significantly impacts your health beyond the number of steps taken.
According to one of the lead authors of the study, Dr. Matthew Ahmadi, one should preferably not only strive to reach those well-known 10k daily steps but see if it is possible to take them at a faster pace.
Additionally, the analysis shows that, among those who are less active, a mere 3,800 steps a day can already have a significant effect, reducing the incidence of dementia by 25%. However, the optimal number of daily steps to lower your risk of dementia is 9,800 steps per day.
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The study also shows that every additional 2000 steps taken per day reduced the risk of early death by 8 to 11% to the point of about 10,000 steps.
The takeaway
This enormous scale study provides the strongest evidence as of yet that a daily step count of 10,000 is optimal for health benefits and that walking faster has extra advantages. (Be sure to check out the paper published in the peer-reviewed journal; JAMA Neurology, listed below of you are interested in more details)
Future studies using trackers for more extended periods would allow for a more detailed insight into the impact of different levels and intensities of daily walking.
All in all, (as suggested in the title), it may be well worth the effort to up the pace when you take your daily walk or even in your regular daily movement.
Sources and further reading:
Association of Daily Step Count and Intensity With Incident Dementia in 78 430 Adults Living in the UK (JAMA Neurology)
A daily 11-minute walk can prevent one in ten premature deaths (Universal-Sci)
What is the difference between Dementia and Alzheimer's disease? (Universal-Sci)
Predicting types of dementia more accurately based on walking patterns (Universal-Sci)
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