Increased step count lowers disease risk, even regardless of time spent sedentary

Officials said 12 hikers were missing and six dead bodies were still to be evacuated – Copyright AFP MAHMUD HAMS

Keeping active is beneficial for health, but just how much activity is needed? This is an area that seems to be regularly researched and often with contrasting findings. A new study puts forward the notion that a daily step count of 9,000 to 10,000 may be sufficient to counteract risk of death and cardiovascular disease. This is when this level of activity is applied to otherwise highly sedentary people.

The research comes from the University of Sydney looking and how increasing your step count might help to counteract the health consequences that are typically associated with too much sedentary time each day.

Such regular physical activity leads to several health benefits, including weight control, strengthening the heart, bones and muscles and reducing the risk of certain diseases.

The study of over 72,000 people indicated that every additional step up to around 10,000 steps a day was linked to reduced risk of death (39 percent) and cardiovascular disease (21 percent) regardless of how much of the remaining time in a person’s life was spent engaged in sedentary pursuits.

The median daily step count for participants was 6222 steps/day, and 2200 steps/day (the lowest 5 percent of daily steps among all participants) was taken as the comparator for assessing the impact on death and cardiovascular related events of increasing step count.

The research appears in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, titled “Do the associations of daily steps with mortality and incident cardiovascular disease differ by sedentary time levels? A device-based cohort study.”

Furthermore, these types of sessions of moderate exercise can also act as an anti-inflammatory. Therefore, such findings additionally have encouraging implications for chronic diseases like arthritis, fibromyalgia and for more pervasive conditions, such as obesity.

In related research, health scientists have found that some six minutes of high-intensity exercise could extend the lifespan of a healthy brain and delay the onset of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

This research shows that a short but intense bout of and activity like cycling increases the production of a specialized protein that is essential for brain formation, learning and memory.

These physiological changes could protect the brain from age-related cognitive decline. The insight on exercise has been used as part of the global drive to develop accessible, equitable and affordable non-pharmacological approaches that anyone can adopt to promote healthy aging.

These findings appear in The Journal of Physiology, titled “Fasting for 20 h does not affect exercise‐induced increases in circulating BDNF in humans.”