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READ MORE: Experts reveal
If you TRULY require taking 10,000 steps each day
Achieving a minimum of 10,000 steps daily has commonly been regarded as the benchmark for physical activity.
A study indicates that concentrating on the duration of your exercise might be equally effective as counting the number of steps you take.
weight loss
, increased lifespan and a lower chance of developing heart diseases.
Scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston examined four years of data covering approximately 15,000 women who were more than 62 years old.
Every participant utilized a fitness tracker for monitoring their activity levels and completed annual health questionnaires each year.
The group discovered that individuals performing between 8,000 and 8,500 steps each day decreased their likelihood of developing heart disease by 40%, as opposed to those taking roughly 3,000 steps daily.
Moreover, they discovered that the same level of risk reduction applied to individuals who exercised for 75 minutes daily, indicating that tracking steps might not be necessary.
This study is among multiple recent publications to
debunk the 10,000-step rule
, according to some experts, there isn’t a single ‘magical’ figure when it comes to exercise routines.
Dr. Rikuta Hamaya, who led the study and works as a researcher at the Division of Preventative Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, stated: “For many people, particularly those who are younger, exercises such as playing tennis, football, taking walks, or going jogging can often be monitored through step counts.”
Nevertheless, for some individuals, it might include activities like cycling or swimming, where tracking the length of workouts is more straightforward. This underscores the importance of having varied options within physical activity recommendations to help people achieve their objectives.
‘Movement looks different for everyone and nearly all forms of movement are beneficial to our health.’
The group enrolled 14,399 women above the age of 62 who were deemed healthy, indicating that they had neither heart disease nor cancer. On average, the participants’ age was 72 years old.
From 2011 to 2015, every woman was instructed to keep a fitness tracker attached to her waist continuously, even when sleeping or taking showers.
Every year, the researchers distributed surveys covering aspects such as health practices including smoking and alcohol consumption, along with measurements of height and weight, details about menopause status, and records of both individual and familial medical backgrounds.
These were utilized to assess the participants’ likelihood of developing heart disease and facing mortality.
The team continued following up with the women throughout 2022.
Typically, participants were active for about 62 minutes each week through moderate-to-vigorous exercises and accumulated around 5,183 steps daily. As of 2022, nine percent of them had passed away and four percent were diagnosed with heart disease.
The women were grouped into percentile categories according to the total minutes they spent exercising or the count of their daily steps.
The research revealed that individuals who exercised for approximately 200 minutes per week or managed around 8,000 to 8,500 steps daily had a reduction in their risk of developing heart disease and dying by as much as 40% when contrasted with people in the bottom tier (who only got nine to twelve minutes of exercise or accumulated roughly 2,800 to 3,000 steps).
The research indicates that patients have the option to select either a step-based approach or a timed-goal strategy to reduce their chances of mortality or cardiovascular disorders, as stated by the researchers.
These findings bolster the argument for incorporating both time-dependent and steps-focused criteria into upcoming physical activity recommendations, providing people with the option to select and monitor their favored measure of engagement.
Therefore, healthcare providers might advise women aged 60 or above to utilize either time-based or step-based objectives, based on their individual preferences, for tracking their physical activity levels.
The study had multiple constraints, primarily due to the majority of participants being white females from higher economic backgrounds. Furthermore, since the research was observational, these findings lack confirmation.
The research was released on Monday in
JAMA Internal Medicine
.
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