The “magic” number of steps to stay healthy and not gain weight- breaking latest news

Walking 8,600 steps every day can prevent weight gain in adulthood while those who are already overweight can halve the risk of leading to obesity by adding another 2400 steps, thus reaching 11,000, concludes a new work just published in the journal Nature Medicine. .

The tendency to gain weight

In adulthood and progressively in middle age there is a tendency to gain weight, between half a kilo and a kilo per year. It may seem like a modest increase, but over time it can lead to obesity. People can really reduce their risk of obesity by walking more, says the study’s author, Dr. Evan Brittain, of the division of cardiovascular medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Walking more has also improved the
diabetes, sleep apnea problems, hypertension
. After 8,000-9,000 steps the link between hypertension and diabetes stabilized. The more steps you take, the better Evan Brittain commented on CNN.

Activities tracked for 10 hours a day for four years

The study analyzed an average of four years of activity and health data from more than 6,000 participants in the National Institutes of Health‘s All of Us research program, dedicated to researching ways to develop individualized health care. I participatenti wore trackers to track their aactivity for at least 10 hours a day and allowed researchers to access their electronic health records for several years. Our study followed the volunteers for an average of four years and we were able to monitor the total activity from the start of the monitoring and the time the disease was diagnosed, Brittain said. The data collected is therefore real, and not the result of self-completed questionnaires even if, it must be said, the mere fact of wearing a tracker makes it less sedentary.

Benefits also against sleep apnea and reflux

The participants were all between 41 and 67 years old, with a body mass index starting from 23.3, considered ideal for a healthy person at that age (at 32.9 we talk about obesity). The researchers also found that people who walked about 6.4 kilometers per day (equivalent to about 8,200 steps) were less likely to become obese or suffer from sleep apnea, acid reflux and depressive disorder. It is already known that sleep apnea and reflux respond well to weight loss which can reduce pressure on the throat and stomach while exercise is also a key treatment for depression.

The study also found that overweight participants (those with BMI 25 to 29) they halved their risk of becoming obese by increasing their steps to 11,000 per day. The increase in steps resulted in a 50% reduction in the cumulative incidence of obesity at 5 years, the study found.

Previous

The new study echoes the findings of a recent study in which researchers found that health benefits increased with each step to about 10,000 steps; afterwards the effects started to wear off. As it is not enough to walk 10,000 steps a day, the pace above all counts to prevent the risk of death: the walking speed (80 steps per minute) seems even more crucial than the number of steps to limit the risk of dementia and diseases. cardiovascular. For less active people, even a minimum of 3,800 steps per day can reduce the risk of dementia by 25 percent. Other research has found that the optimal number of steps per day to achieve health benefits approaches 6,000, and it also varies by age. However, it now seems clear that the more you walk, the better, the better at a brisk pace.