breaking latest news – “Come on, accelerate, come on…”. We are often lazy and proceed at a slow pace. Even in our daily walk, which we generally do to keep ourselves fit and keep any cardiovascular problems as far away as possible. So much so that we even equip ourselves with a special “pedometer”, downloaded to our smartphone, to monitor the length of our routes.
Well, as of today we have to know that a new study, which looks at the activity tracking data of 78,500 people, has determined that “walking briskly for about 30 minutes a day reduced the risk of heart disease, cancer, dementia and death, compared to walking the same number of steps at a slower pace”.
The New York Times talks about it, but the study was published in two articles in the journals Jama Internal Medicine and Jama Neurlogy, in which we read that the researchers found that every 2,000 additional steps per day reduced “the risk of premature death, heart disease and cancer by about 10%, up to about 10,000 steps per day”.
When it came to developing the research by associating it with the condition of dementia, “9,800 steps per day were associated with a 50% reduced risk, with a 25% risk reduction from approximately 3,800 steps per day”, although in past, similar studies have also shown that the benefits of walking begin well before the often heralded 10,000 steps per day.
However, the researchers made some other new discoveries, such as when they examined the frequency of steps per minute: in the sense that those who had sustained an average pace higher and faster than their walk (between 80 and 100 steps per minute) obtained greater benefits. than someone who had walked a similar amount each day, but at a slower pace.
Result: “Fast walkers had a 35% lower risk of dyinga 25% lower chance of developing heart disease or cancer and a 30% lower risk of developing dementia, compared to those whose average pace was slower.
In short, a person who takes between 2,400 and 3,000 steps every day while walking briskly could experience a sharp reduction in the risk of developing heart disease, cancer and dementia, even without taking many more steps than their daily total.
It is not the quantity of steps that affects, but the speed with which they are taken. “It’s not about walking consecutively for 30 minutes,” said Matthew Ahmadi, a researcher at the University of Sydney, one of the authors of the two studies. “It can also be only brief and sporadic accelerations during the course of the day”. The goal must therefore be to aim to walk a little faster than the normal pace. A few steps, well laid back, but – above all – accelerated.