Don’t get overwhelmed by 10,000 steps. Here’s how many you may really need

By Madeline Holcombe, CNN

(CNN) — Does the popular activity benchmark of walking 10,000 steps a day feel like too distant of a goal? Don’t worry, you can get health benefits just by moving a little more than you already are, new research has found.

When possible, aiming for 7,000 steps a day is a good objective, said lead study author Dr. Melody Ding, professor of public health at the University of Sydney.

Ding and a team of researchers reviewed 31 different studies on the impacts of step count on health markers, including cardiovascular disease, dementia, type 2 diabetes, cancer, depressive symptoms and early death, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal The Lancet Public Health.

Compared with people who got 2,000 steps a day, which researchers considered the minimal possible step count for adults, people who took 7,000 daily steps had a 47% lower risk of death from all causes. The more active adults also had a 25% lower risk of cardiovascular disease and a 38% lower risk of dementia.

Many people who use fitness trackers see 10,000 steps as a sign they are getting enough movement in a day, but that number is not based on good evidence, said Dr. Sean Heffron, assistant professor of medicine at New York University Langone Health and NYU Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease. He was not involved in the research.

Aiming for 10,000 steps likely originated from a marketing campaign for an early pedometer manufactured in Japan by Yamasa Clock and Instrument Company that was called Manpo-kei, or “10,000 steps meter” in Japanese, according to a 2019 study.

Cardiologist Dr. Martha Gulati said she is usually skeptical when the benchmark is such a nice round number. Gulati was also not involved in the research.

However, it is clear from this study and the existing data that moving more is fundamental for good health and is usually a sound idea, Heffron said.

“More than 7k doesn’t do harm, and may even offer some additional benefits,” Ding said in an email. “If one is already very active and doing 10+k a day, they definitely don’t need to hold back and go back to 7k!”

Why steps matter

The study is a meta-analysis, which analyzes evidence across many studies and is one of the highest-quality kinds of research for making clinical recommendations, Heffron said.

Measuring step counts as the recent study did is important not because walking is the only activity that matters, but rather because it is a good way to get a fairly accurate estimate of overall exercise levels, said Gulati, director of preventive cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

If a patient tells her they did half an hour of exercise, Gulati has to not only trust that they estimated the time accurately but also guess at the intensity of that time spent exercising, she said. On the other hand, if a patient is wearing a tracking device that said they walked 5 miles, that impact is clear whether they walked it, ran it, did it in one go or broke it up, she added.

Unfortunately, many people are quite sedentary, but the baseline for human bodies is to be active, Heffron said. It makes sense that moving less is linked to more health problems.

“The less you move, the less your muscles get engaged, the less exerkines, which are these special chemicals that are released with muscle contractions that benefit levels of inflammation, benefit blood vessel health, but also improve insulin sensitivity and improve blood pressure, and probably have some impact on cognitive function,” he said. “As there’s less of that movement, the rates of all the detrimental conditions increase.”

Physical activity also improves muscular strength, which can help protect against falls and fractures, Gulati said. From a cardiovascular perspective, exercise is linked to lower blood pressure, improved cholesterol and a better response to insulin, she added.

You don’t need a gym to get moving

Most Americans could stand to move more, Gulati said. For people who aren’t moving much, aiming for 7,000 steps a day may seem like a lot, but just getting started makes a big difference.

“Accumulating daily steps offers a broad range of health benefits. Even low step counts, such as 4k, offers health benefits than lower step counts,” Ding said in an email.

The biggest bang for your buck in terms of your health comes from going from no exercise to adding any movement –– and then gradually building up to more regular activity from there, Heffron added.

Maybe walking isn’t your favorite way to get moving. Do things you enjoy, such as dancing, gardening, playing pickleball or hiking with a friend, Heffron said. Getting to the gym and dedicating a block of time to activity may not always be feasible, so he recommends finding ways in your day to add in a little bit more movement.

You can get up every hour at work for a five-minute walk, which incorporates 45 minutes of activity in your day, he said. If you take the bus or subway, getting off a stop or two early and walking the rest of the way can also help you meet your fitness goals.

“It will add a few minutes onto your commute, but every one of those minutes is going to be involved in physical activity,” Heffron said. “That all adds up little by little over the course of a day and week.”

Getting more steps, however, may not be the best guideline for everyone, particularly those who are limited in their capacity to walk, Ding added.

For seated exercises, try hand cycling or chair exercises with or without weights, Bishnu Pada Das, a certified personal trainer based in Kolkata, India, said in a previous CNN story.

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