It’s a widely acknowledged fact: research consistently indicates that physical activity is beneficial for health.
What’s more striking is that even a small amount of movement could yield noticeable results, according to findings published Tuesday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. This study, which involved over 13,000 women with an average age of 72, showed that merely walking 4,000 steps one day a week was sufficient for these women to begin experiencing a reduced probability of death or developing heart disease during the study period. The research suggests that taking a mile or two walk weekly still offers benefits, even if activity levels are low on other days.
Modest Steps, Significant Impact
Fitness applications and wearable devices frequently set a daily goal of 10,000 steps for users. However, many experts agree this number is arbitrary. Amanda Paluch, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst who investigates step counts as a measure of physical exercise, notes that the popular target appears to have originated from a Japanese pedometer created decades ago. She states, “It has not been substantiated by scientific data.”
Nonetheless, steps offer a practical method for conceptualizing physical activity, prompting researchers to delve into determining the precise daily count linked to improved health.
In the recent study, participants wore step counters for one week, and researchers recorded the number of days each woman achieved step counts exceeding 4,000, 5,000, 6,000, and 7,000. Subsequently, for more than ten years, they tracked whether these women developed cardiovascular disease or succumbed to it.
The objective was to ascertain if even relatively low numbers of steps, logged on just a few days, would influence the women’s health, as stated by study author Dr. Rikuta Hamaya, an instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Women who accumulated 4,000 steps once or twice weekly demonstrated a 27% lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease and a 26% lower risk of dying over the study’s duration, when compared to those who did not engage in similar activity—a substantial difference.
Moving Beyond an All-or-Nothing Approach
The new study indicates that “it’s not an absolute… even initiating activity for just one day can be profoundly meaningful for your health,” commented Paluch, who was not involved in the research. These findings align with her own studies, which suggest that even 6,000 steps daily are associated with a reduced risk of heart disease in adults approximately 60 years of age. The current research also brings to mind the work of other teams on “weekend warriors,” or individuals who condense their exercise into just a day or two each week but still achieve better health outcomes than those who remain inactive.
Dr. Shaan Khurshid, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, agrees that even a modest amount of physical activity can provide significant health benefits. He asserts, “[That finding] empowers us to reassure patients by saying…even if you’re not exercising or walking every single day, you’re still gaining an advantage from that activity.”
Other elements might influence the correlation between movement and health. Based on observing study participants, the researchers cannot definitively conclude that movement directly caused their improved health outcomes. Preexisting frailty could also have been a factor—although the researchers made efforts to account for this, there’s always a possibility that some individuals who walked very little did so because their health was already compromised.
Additionally, Hamaya highlighted that this study exclusively involved older, predominantly white women. More diverse studies encompassing younger individuals are required to determine the effects of step counts across other demographic groups.
Nevertheless, as accumulating research continues to suggest the benefits of even minimal exercise, these latest findings offer an encouraging sign that, if you are considering increasing your activity level, even a small effort can make a difference.
