Aiming for 10,000 steps? The benefit starts below 4,000

The risk of dying from any cause began to fall at 3,967 steps a day – well short of 10,000 – in an analysis published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

NHS advice for adults aged 19 to 64 is measured in minutes, not steps. It recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity.

The moderate target works out at “around 20 to 30 minutes a day”.

The analysis covered 226,889 people across 17 studies. Published in 2023, it also found:

• The risk of dying from heart and circulation problems began to fall at an even lower count, from around 2,337 steps a day.
• Every extra 1,000 steps a day was linked to a 15% lower risk of dying from any cause.
• For heart and circulation deaths, every extra 500 steps a day was linked to a 7% lower risk.
• The researchers “have not found an upper limit yet”: at 20,000 steps a day, the benefit was still rising.

“Our study confirms that the more you walk, the better,” said Maciej Banach, professor of cardiology at the Medical University of Lodz, who led the research.

Harvard Health Publishing reported in 2019 on a separate study, which used motion sensors to track the steps of 16,741 women.

Those who averaged 4,400 steps a day had “a 41% reduction in mortality”.

In that study, death rates kept improving with more steps, but only up to a point. They levelled off at about 7,500 a day, well below the 20,000 at which the larger analysis was still finding gains.

Banach’s analysis describes extra steps as “associated with” a lower risk. That means people who walked more were less likely to die – not that the walking itself has been shown to be the cause.

The average age of those taking part was 64 in the analysis and 72 in the second study, which included only women.

NHS guidance for older adults advises anyone who has not exercised for some time, or who has “medical conditions or concerns”, to “speak to a GP first”.

The 10,000 figure itself was traced back to 1965 by Dr I-Min Lee, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who led the study of women.

That year, a Japanese company made a device called Manpo-kei, which translates as “10,000 steps meter”.

“The name was a marketing tool,” Lee said.