New research suggests that increasing your daily walk may benefit your heart.
In a study of healthy adults, people who took most of their daily steps for 15 minutes or longer had a significantly lower risk of cardiovascular disease and death nearly a decade later than those who took a few shorter walks throughout the day. The study was published Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
What's more, adults who had a history of being less active and taking longer walks showed the greatest health gains.
An international team of scientists studied the daily movements of 33,560 adults aged on average 62 living in the UK, using information collected from 2013 to 2015 in a health research database called UK Biobank. For three to seven days, participants wore an accelerometer on their wrist, which recorded their physical activity.
The researchers divided people into four groups based on how they recorded the majority of their steps each day: periods shorter than five minutes, five to less than 10 minutes, 10 to less than 15 minutes, and 15 minutes or longer. The largest group – 42.9% of participants – fell into the “under five minutes” category.
After about 9.5 years of follow-up, the researchers found that people who walked in bursts of 15 minutes or longer were least likely to die during the study period, while people who walked for shorter than five minutes had the highest risk.
People who walked for longer periods also had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease during the follow-up period, with the risk increasing as walking duration decreased.
Study co-author Borja del Pozo Cruz, a professor and researcher at the Department of Sports Sciences at the Universidad Europa Madrid, calls the four walking durations “doses.”
“There is a clear dose response,” del Pozo Cruz said. “The longer the fight, the better for the various health outcomes we analyzed.”
The decision to study human health using incremental accumulation models, as opposed to total number of steps or intensity of physical activitywas intentional, he said.
“It’s easy to translate, everyone understands the steps,” del Pozo Cruz said. “Essentially, everyone can measure steps using their smartwatches, smartphones, pedometers, etc. We thought that focusing on steps would be much more effective because they translate instantly.”
Forget about “workout snacks” and 10,000 steps a day
The idea that adults should strive to 10,000 steps per day It's more of a marketing ploy to sell fitness trackers than scientific guidance, said Steven Richman, an assistant professor of kinesiology and sport management at Texas A&M University who was not involved in the study.
Richman said the body goes through a number of adaptations when moving from a resting mode to an exercise regimen—changes that take some time. This may explain why people who walked in bouts shorter than five minutes did not experience significant improvements in health, he said.
“You have to get all the systems going, and that's where the health benefits come from,” Richman said. “The one I've been thinking about the most is [which] What the article doesn't mention is that an increase in body temperature probably won't occur in less than five minutes of walking.”
Despite mixed research Regarding the health benefits of 10,000 steps per day, the study considered people who achieved an average number of steps per day of less than 8,000 to be “suboptimally active.” All study participants took fewer than 8,000 steps per day, and those who took fewer than 5,000 were considered sedentary. The average activity of all participants was 5165 steps per day.
The researchers found that the association between longer walks and a lower risk of early death and heart disease was stronger among sedentary participants. In this group, people who walked in bouts shorter than five minutes had a 5.13% risk of death during the study period, compared with a 0.86% risk for people who walked in bouts longer than 15 minutes. Their risk of developing cardiovascular disease over the ten-year study period was 15.39% and 6.89%, respectively.
“You have a lot of profit from zero to something,” Richman said. “Then you continue to receive benefits, but they get lower and lower. By the time you reach 10,000 [steps]you won’t get too many additional benefits.”
The study contradicts previous studies that emphasized the benefits “workout snacks” or bursts of physical activity lasting less than five minutes. For example, a study published earlier this month in the journal British Journal of Sports Medicine found that exercise snacking improved the fitness levels of physically inactive adults. However, in this study, short bursts were defined as moderate to vigorous structured activity. On the other hand, the short bursts in del Pozo Cruz's study involved unstructured, low-intensity steps that could be accumulated over the course of a day.
“Every step counts,” they say American Heart Association, a mantra Richman espouses. Some physical activity is always better than no physical activity.
“Getting out and taking a few steps will definitely be beneficial,” he said. “In my opinion, you're just not optimizing the benefits.”
“It’s never too late” to start walking
The study had several limitations, including that 97% of the participants were white.
Another limitation of the study is that participants' walking patterns represent a snapshot in time, and people's exercise habits can change over the years. Even so, the study's large sample size likely stabilized such differences, says Carmen Swain, director of the health and exercise science program at The Ohio State University, who was not involved in the study.
One of the study's greatest strengths, she said, was the average age of the participants: 62. life time when people can assume they have passed the point of reducing their risk of heart disease and early death.
“You can start [walking] at any age; It’s not too late,” Swain said. “The physiological adaptation that occurs in a 20-year-old person will also occur in a 60-year-old person.”
Yes, a 60-year-old may already have the underlying signs of heart disease, she said, so maintaining a walking routine is even more important for older adults.
“Unfortunately, this population often has a hard time getting started because they haven't done it for so long,” said Swain, who lectures her students about walking power. “There must be motivation.”
Since heart disease is the No. 1 killer of men and women in the United States, Swain hopes the heart health benefits of walking will be motivation enough.
“Walking is so democratic. You can do it wherever you want, whenever you want and how you want,” she said. “It's a good form of exercise.”
