How Many Steps Should You Walk to Live Longer?
How many steps should you walk each day to stay healthy and live longer?
Many people say the magic number is 10,000 steps. However, a study published in The Lancet Public Health has found that fewer steps can be just as good, especially if you're 60 or over.
The idea for 10,000 steps seems to have come from a Japanese company selling pedometers back in 1965. The company called its pedometer the "Manpo Meter," which translates to the "10,000-step meter." However, it's believed this number was made up — and it has stayed with us ever since.
So, to find out the exact number of steps adults should actually be walking, researchers looked at 15 studies to compare health data from nearly 48,000 people from Asia, Australia, Europe and North America.
The researchers found that the results were different for older and younger adults.
While the risk of early death generally decreased as people walked more, for people 60 and over, the risk stopped decreasing after about 6,000 to 8,000 steps per day. For adults between 18 and 59, the risk stopped decreasing after about 8,000 to 10,000 steps.
The researchers also grouped the participants according to their step count. The lowest group walked about 3,500 steps per day, and the highest group about 10,900 steps per day.
Adults in the group doing the most steps had a 40% to 53% lower risk of early death than people in the bottom group, the researchers found.
The researchers said that knowing the best number of steps for different age groups could help improve public health advice.
