Daily steps of 9000-10,000 may reduce death and cardiovascular risks in sedentary people

Previous studies have suggested that higher daily step counts correlate with reduced death and cardiovascular disease (CVD) rates, while prolonged sedentary behaviour is linked to increased CVD and death risks.

Led by the University of Sydney/Charles Perkins Centre, the study examined data from 72,174 individuals in the UK Biobank study. Participants wore wrist accelerometers for seven days to measure physical activity. The median daily step count for participants was 6222 steps/day, and 2200 steps/day was taken as the reference point for assessing the impact on death and CVD events of increasing step count.

Individuals sedentary for 10.5 hours/day or more were categorized as having high sedentary time, while those with less than 10.5 hours/day sedentary were considered low sedentary time. Accounting for other factors, the optimal step count to counteract high sedentary time was 9000 to 10000 steps/day. Notably, half of the benefits were observed at 4000 to 4500 steps/day in both cases.

The findings revealed that taking 9000 to 10000 steps per day could counteract high sedentary time. This reduced mortality risk by 39% and incident CVD risk by 21% over an average follow-up of 6.9 years.

“Any amount of daily steps above the referent 2200 steps/day was associated with lower mortality and incident CVD risk, for low and high sedentary time. Accruing between 9000 and 10,000 steps/day optimally lowered the risk of mortality and incident CVD among highly sedentary participants. The minimal threshold associated with substantially lower mortality and CVD risk was between 4000 and 4500 steps/day.” said the authors.

“Our prospective results provide relevant findings that can be used to augment public health messaging and inform the first generation of device-based physical activity and sedentary behaviour guidelines, which will likely include specific recommendations on daily stepping.”

Reference: Matthew N Ahmadi, F M Rezende, Ferrari, Borja Del Pozo Cruz, Min Lee, Emmanuel Stamatakis; Journal: British Journal of Sports Medicine; DOI: 10.1136/bjsports-2023-107221