Exercise

Are 10,000 Steps a Day Really Necessary for All?

Many wearable technologies, such as fitness trackers, apps, and the like, often encourage users to reach a physical activity goal of 10,000 steps per day. However, new findings published in JAMA Internal Medicine may call this common belief into question.

A prospective cohort study of older women found that walking a minimum of 4400 steps per day may still confer a mortality benefit in this patient population compared with 2700 steps per day. The findings also suggested that mortality rates decreased with higher step counts up to 7500 steps per day, when mortality benefits leveled off.

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“These findings may serve as encouragement to the many sedentary individuals for whom 10,000 [steps per day] pose an unattainable goal,” the authors of the study said of their findings.

The researchers arrived at their conclusion after evaluating 18,298 US participants from the Women’s Health Study. Respondents who agreed to participate were assigned to wear an accelerometer during waking hours over the course of 1 week between 2011 and 2015.

Among the 16,741 women (mean age, 72 years) who demonstrated compliance—defined as at least 10 hours per day of wear for at least 4 days—higher stepping intensities were found to be associated with significantly lower rates of mortality. However, adjusting these findings for steps-per-day rendered most of these associations statistically insignificant.

Hazard ratios were:

  • 0.87 for highest vs lowest quartile for peak 1-minute cadence.
  • 0.86 for peak 30-minute cadence.
  • 0.80 for maximum 5-minute cadence.
  • 1.27 for time spent at a stepping rate of at least 40 steps per minute.
     

Mean step count among participants was 5499 steps. In this cohort, approximately 51.4% of time was spent at 0 steps per day, whereas incidental steps (1 to 39 steps) comprised 45.5% of time per day, and purposeful steps (at least 40 steps) comprised 3.1% of time per day.

—Christina Vogt

Reference:

Lee IM, Shiroma EJ, Kamada M, Bassett DR, Matthews CE, Buring JE. Association of step volume and intensity with all-cause mortality in older women [published online May 29, 2019]. JAMA Intern Med. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.0899.