For some years now, it has been established in the popular imagination that in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle it is important to take a daily walk of at least 10,000 steps, or what is the same, about seven kilometres.
It is not at all clear where this symbolic figure comes from. Some voices point to a catchy Japanese advertising spot created by the Japanese company Yamasa Tokei, which launched the first commercial pedometer called Manpo-kei, which means 10,000-step meter, simply because it sounded good.
However, a study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology has reduced to less than half this minimum distance that people must walk every day to stay fit and healthy.
According to this new research, walking at least 3,867 steps a day already serves to begin to reduce the risk of dying prematurely from any disease, and that with 2,337 steps a day the risk of suffering serious cardiovascular diseases is already reduced.
This study has been carried out analyzing the activity of 226,889 people from around the world. The main conclusion is that the more you walk, the greater the health benefits: "Our study confirms that the more you walk, the better," said the research leader, Maciej Banach, a professor at the University's Faculty of Medicine. Johns Hopkins, in the United States.
The risk of dying from any cause or from cardiovascular disease decreases significantly with each additional 500 to 1,000 steps taken per day. An increase of 1,000 steps a day has been associated with a 15% reduction in the risk of dying from any cause, and an increase of 500 steps a day has been associated with a 7% reduction in dying from cardiovascular disease.
“This applied to both men and women, regardless of age and regardless of whether you live in a temperate, subtropical or subpolar region of the world,” Maciej Banac detailed.
