• Why walking is the best activity to lose weight in a healthy way
  • How many steps should you take per day to be healthy?

Something as natural and, apparently, simple as walking, says much more about us than we think. After each step we take, there is a complicated (and immediate operation) framework in which the musculoskeletal, visual, central nervous and peripheral nervous systems interact involving aerobic capacity, cardiorespiratory fitness and energy production, among many other things. .

Well, the way that gear works (which was so visually explained in that wonderful series of our childhood called 'Once upon a time the human body') tells a lot about ourselves, more specifically, about our past, present and health future .

According to a study led by Line Jee Hartmann Rasmussen, a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University (United States), the speed at which we walk at age 45 can be a valid indicator of how we are going to age, physical and mentally

In this investigation, published on October 11 in the JAMA Network, the team led by Hartmann Rasmussen observed that slower walkers experienced "accelerated aging", measured according to a scale in which 19 parameters were contemplated. Moreover, their lungs, their teeth, their immune systems and even their brains tended to be in worse shape than those of people who walked more lightly.

The speed of gait is, according to this report, much more than a simple geriatric index based on the functional decline of the adult. This is an indicative, with possible origins in central nervous system deficits caused during childhood , which can be used to predict the risk of disability or mortality once they reach old age. A finding that also affects the promotion of a more effective movement as a measure to improve integral health.

IDEAL SPEED

To reach these conclusions, the authors of the report analyzed the physical and mental evolution of an initial sample of 1,037 people, born between April 1972 and April 1973 in Dunedin (New Zealand), since childhood (at three, five, seven, nine, 11, 13, 15, 18, 21, 26, 32 and 38 years) until the time they turned 45 (of the 997 who were still alive, the state of 938 was analyzed).

The question is: what is that ideal speed that the most fit subjects that participated in the study reached and that would augur us an old age at full power? Well, two meters per second, that is, about 7 kilometers per hour (distance that approximates that ideal of 10,000 steps that we should take every day to be fit).

In any case, slow or fast, what is clear is that the more we walk (if possible, without looking at the mobile), the better for us.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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