Hyderabad: The evidence-based health benefits of walking continue to accumulate, according to ongoing research by a University of Massachusetts Amherst physical activity epidemiologist, who leads an international consortium known as the Steps for Health Collaborative. Findings from the latest study led by Amanda Paluch, assistant professor of kinesiology in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, show that older adults who walked between 6,000 and 9,000 steps per day had a 40-50% reduced risk of a cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack or stroke, compared to those who walked 2,000 steps per day.
“We found for adults over 60, there was a strikingly lower risk of a cardiovascular event or disease over an average follow-up of six years,” says Paluch, whose team’s research was published this week in the journal Circulation. “When accumulating more steps per day, there was a progressively lower risk.”
Earlier this year, research by Paluch and the Steps for Health Collaborative showed that more movement, even below the highly touted but unscientific “10,000 steps per day,” was associated with longevity benefits. The meta-analysis of 15 studies involving nearly 50,000 people from four continents found that walking between 6,000 and 8,000 steps per day was linked with a lower risk of death from all causes among older adults.
Following those findings, Paluch and the team wanted to tackle the less-charted territory of steps per day and cardiovascular disease. The results were similar, in terms of the most beneficial range of steps. While there appears to be a continual additional benefit for those who walk more than 6,000 steps, Paluch says, encouraging the least-active older adults to take more steps is perhaps the most important public health message.