Ask the doctor.
Question My smartphone tells me what number of steps I take every day, but I do not know the way many steps I ought to be taking. What should my goal be?
Oh You’ve read in these pages and elsewhere that regular physical activity reduces the danger of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and possibly many kinds of cancer. Regular exercise also reduces the danger of premature death. No drug invented yet can claim such advantages. The advice you’ve got probably heard most frequently is that moderate exercise—corresponding to brisk walking (at a pace of about 3 miles per hour) for half-hour at the least five times per week—will bring all the above health advantages.
But you might be asking a rather different query. You’re saying that smartphones and wearables now give us a tool to measure how physically energetic we’re: the variety of steps we take every day. Great, but what should our goal be?
In the study, nearly 17,000 older women (average age 72) got a tool that counted every step they took during their waking hours for seven consecutive days. The variety of deaths over the subsequent 4 years was compared in 4 groups, each with the typical variety of steps taken per day: 2,718 steps (least energetic), 4,363 steps, 5,905 steps, and eight,442 steps (most energetic). Rigorous statistical techniques were used to account for the influence of things apart from activity level that will have affected the ladies’s risk of dying, corresponding to their illnesses.
The results: At about 7,500 steps per day, the danger of death was about 40 percent lower than within the least energetic group. Above 7,500 steps, there was no obvious additional profit. Also, cadence (corresponding to how briskly one walks) didn’t appear to confer additional advantages. The study only included women with a mean age of 72, but I feel it’s fair to assume that it applies to men that age as well.
Based on this and other studies, what should I—as a person in my 70s—do? I’m pretty good about doing half-hour of moderate activity at the least five days per week. I seek the advice of my smartphone every single day, and I aim for at the least 7,500 steps per day. Until and unless higher data comes out, I’d suggest the identical for you.
Photo: © kali9/Getty Images