Researchers say walking daily can reduce your risk of high blood pressure and diabetes. They say those daily steps can also reduce stress and bolster your immune systems. Some simple ways to get in your walking is to park far away from the store, walk instead of having lunch with a friend, and hold a work meeting while walking.
Cases of high blood pressure and diabetes are rising, but researchers say there is a free and relatively easy way to reduce your risk of developing one of these diseases. It’s the simple act of walking. The standard recommendation for physical fitness is 10,000 steps a day. But even a fraction of that can work, according to the authors of a new study.
What researchers discovered
The study was based on data from 1,923 participants in the national Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. The report said every set of 1,000 steps taken daily over the course of 9 years lowers the risk of obesity by 13 per cent in middle-aged women. The researchers state that middle-aged study participants who walked the most steps per day over an average of 9 years had a 43 per cent lower risk of diabetes and a 31 per cent lower risk of high blood pressure.
The research was presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention/Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health Scientific Sessions 2020 in Phoenix, Arizona. In the study, participants wore accelerometer devices to measure physical activity at least 10 hours a day for at least 4 days. The average age of the participants was 45. Almost 60 per cent were women and about 40 per cent were black. The average follow-up time was 9 years.
Those with the highest step count were 61 per cent less likely to have obesity, compared to women who walked the least. The study didn’t show any association between a lower risk of obesity and the number of daily steps walked by men.
Those 10,000 steps
The 10,000 step benchmark goes back to 1965 when a Japanese scientist reportedly responded to the fitness craze surrounding the 1964 Tokyo Olympics by inventing the pedometer. It was called the Manpo-kei, which translates to 10,000-steps meter. It sounded like a semi-lofty but achievable goal. And it stuck. Of course, there can be variations to all those steps.
