Let's face it. Those 10,000 steps (about seven kilometers) a day that, back in the 60s of the last century, the Japanese doctor Yoshiro Hatano established as a goal that we had to reach in order to enjoy a reasonably good state of health has always seemed too 'ambitious' for our busy pace of life (and catalog of excuses).


And, if 10,000 seems almost impossible to us, of the 15,000 proposed in a study carried out by experts from the University of Warwick (England) and published in January 2017 in 'The International Journal of Obesity', we better not even talk about it.


That's why the conclusions made in 'Relationship of Daily Step Counts to All-Cause Mortality and Cardiovascular Events', published on October 10 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, could not sound better.


Carried out by an international team of researchers, including Francisco B. Ortega and Asier Mañas, professors at the Faculties of Sports Sciences of the Universities of Granada and Castilla-La Mancha, this report states that walking just 2,000 steps a day, about 1.5 kilometers, would be enough to reduce the chances of dying prematurely or suffering heart attacks or strokes.


What's more, in search of maximum specificity, the authors of the research – in which 12 international studies evaluating the effect of daily steps on all-cause mortality in more than 110,000 participants were evaluated – were able to observe thatthose who walked 2,517 steps per day were 8% less likely to die prematurely compared to those who only completed 2,000.


It also explains that, if we try a little harder and reach 8,700 steps per day, approaching the threshold of Hatano's recommendations, we will be able to reduce the risk by up to 60 percent.


Is it better to take more steps or walk faster?

It should be clarified that this study does not address possible benefits related to other physical or mental pathologies. For this reason, it is worth remembering the data collected by a team of researchers from the University of Sydney (Australia) and the University of Southern Denmark in 'Prospective Associations of Daily Step Counts and Intensity With Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease Incidence and Mortality and All-Cause Mortality'

Published in JAMA Internal Medicine and JAMA Neurology in September 2022, this research highlighted that completing the10,000 steps a day that Hatano pointed out effectively reduces the risk of dementia, heart disease, and some types of cancer, decreasing the chances of dying from any of these causes.

However, and here comes the 'crux' of the matter, these scientists found that walkingat a faster rate for less time is more interesting, from the point of view of the benefits it brings, than taking those recommended 10,000 steps.

What's more, after monitoring 78,500 adults, they were able to observe that just taking those 2,000 steps a day that Ortega and Mañas also talk about reduced the risk of premature death by 8%. They also looked at similar associations for cardiovascular disease and cancer incidence; and a higher number of steps per day was associated with a lower risk of all-cause dementia.

Whichever way you look at it, the conclusion couldn't be clearer: you have to move, and the more the better.

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