10,000 steps a day will take you further. A new study has found the best evidence so far of how walking 10,000 steps a day will keep us not only healthy, but away from risks of death.
A new study, The Tasped Prospective Cohort Study, published November 4 on PLOS ONE journal was the very first to prove a comprehensible link between exercise measured by pedometers and reduced risk of death. Previous studies have measured physical activity by questionnaire only. Indeed this study clearly shows that exercise should now be seen as a potential means of increasing life-expectancy.
The study by The George Institute for Global Health and the Menzies Research Institute in Tasmania monitored 3000 Australians over 15 year, who were given a pedometer each. Data was gathered at the beginning and again about five years later to measure the number of steps taken each day. The participants averaged 58.8 years old at the start of the study and the major end point was death due to any cause.
According to study author Professor Terry Dwyer, they found out that an inactive person who increased his or her steps from 1000 to 10,000 a day, seven days a week, was found to have a 46 percent lower mortality risk. The research team is confident that this study is a more accurate measure of how active the study's participants are because of the pedometers.
The results are now the objective evidences for the recommended goal by The World Health Organization, the US Heart Foundation and Australia's National Heart Foundation for young to mid-aged adults to accomplish 10,000 steps every day. Based from a US-based study in 2011, this is a reasonable target for healthy adults. There used to be no credible evidences behind that recommendation, but health experts are now delighted to hear about the objective evidences.
