By Sandee LaMotte, CNN, September 12, 2022
Put on your walking shoes and don’t forget your step counter: You can reduce your risk for cancer, heart disease and early death by getting up to 10,000 steps a day, but any amount of walking helps, according to a new study.
Health benefits rose with every step, the study found, but peaked at 10,000 steps – after that the effects faded. Counting steps may be especially important for people who do unstructured, unplanned physical activity such as house work, gardening and dog walks.
“Notably, we detected an association between incidental steps (steps taken to go about daily life) and a lower risk of both cancer and heart disease,” noted study coauthor Borja del Pozo Cruz, an adjunct associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark, and senior researcher in health sciences for the University of Cadiz in Spain.
“By and large, I think the study is well done and it certainly continues to add to the foundation of knowledge that tells us exercise is good stuff,” said Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, Colorado. He was not involved in the research.
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