The number of steps per day may not be the most important element in improving your health – discover the secret to a healthy life
Walking a lot or walking fast? Either method gives the best results for whole body health, reducing the risk of heart disease and dementia.
One exercise we can all do without any prior training or equipment is walking. Not only is it great for your health, but you could use this little daily exercise as an extra motivation to use your car less when shopping or other errands.
But one question still remains open: is it more important to walk for a long time or to walk at a brisk pace? In fact, the answer is that both walking a lot and fast is very beneficial to the body. In fact, even after 2,000 steps a day we can see a reduction in the risk of heart disease, cancer and premature death. After 9,000 steps a day it also drastically reduces the risk of developing dementia.
Nonetheless, two new research published in JAMA Internal Medicine e JAMA Neurology used an innovative study system to collect more accurate walking intensity data.
The study followed more than 78,000 people from the UK database, volunteers over the age of 61 who agreed to wear a tracker for a week, day and night. The use of this technology has solved a considerable problem in this type of study. Usually, volunteers are asked to provide information on their habits on their own, leading to less reliable data. Trackers are a solution to this problem, giving research teams all the information they need.
The volunteers who participated were then re-examined for a period ranging on average between 6 and 8 years, with the aim of checking certain health parameters such as the onset of diseases or their worsening.
But what are the results?
Which is more important: walking a lot or walking fast?
Although, as we said earlier, taking up to 10,000 steps a day can give great results in preventing the onset of cancer, heart disease and dementia, the latest research published in the scientific journals JAMA has shown that, in reality, the intensity walking is more important than the number of steps.
Participants in the study who had a rhythm between 80 and 110 steps per minute were the healthiest after the time range they were monitored. With the same number of steps walked, those who had a faster pace had a reduction of
- 35% of dying prematurely
- 25% of heart disease and cancer
- 30% of diseases related to dementia
To maximize the effects, you should aim for a daily session of at least 30 minutes in which you walk at a brisk pace. The 30 minutes do not have to be consecutive and the accelerated walk can be gradual. If you’re going just a little faster than normal in the first few days, that might be enough.
The key for this exercise to work properly is to keep the body under slight physical stress at all times. A small test called talk test: if you can sing while walking, then you are too slow. If, on the other hand, you can speak without problems, you are on the right path, but you have not yet reached an anaerobic phase. By the time you speak with some fatigue, then you are walking at the right speed to strain your body and have a promising long-term result.
This research is part of a trend that aims to investigate the benefits of medium intensity exercises on the human body. A brisk walk is just one of these medium intensity exercises, which can guarantee a significant result and greatly reduce the risk factors for heart attacks, tumors and dementia. What are you waiting for? Lace up your shoes, a walk a day keeps the doctor away.
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