A recent study sought to identify the benefits of walking for longer periods in participants who were walking 8,000 steps a day or less.
The study found that walking for longer stretches was associated with a lower risk of death and cardiovascular disease than walking for shorter stretches.
Technology is readily available to help the everyday person keep track of the number of steps they take each day. However, a recent study explored whether the length of time participants walked affected the outcomes of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality.
At the end of the study, people who walked for longer stretches of time had a lower risk for all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease than those who walked for shorter lengths. These results suggest that how one reaches a step count can also affect health outcomes.
The study and a related editorial were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
5 vs. 15 minutes of walking at a time
Participants in this prospective cohort study were part of the UK Biobank and were taking 8,000 steps a day or fewer. After recruiting participants, researchers conducted physical exams and collected some data via questionnaires.
Participants wore an accelerometer to track steps for up to one week. Researchers then focused on participants who were taking an average of less than 8,000 steps daily. They further excluded participants based on factors like missing covariate data and already having cardiovascular disease. The final analytic sample had 33,560 participants.
Researchers divided walking bouts into four ranges: less than five minutes, five to less than ten minutes, ten to less than 15 minutes, and 15 minutes or more. They then placed participants into these groups based on which walking bout length most of their daily step counts came from.
