You’ve probably heard that adults should aim to take 10,000 steps each day. This one-size-fits-all approach sends a clear message, but it doesn’t take into account how diverse human lifestyles and bodies are.
Earlier this year, an international team of researchers found that even the most sedentary people can ward off the harmful effects of sitting by increasing the number of steps they take each day.
We know that an increasingly sedentary lifestyle is associated with higher cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality, increased risk of cancer and diabetes, and shorter life expectancy – and that these risks are lower in people who walk more or at a faster pace.
But it’s unclear whether sedentary people can offset these alarming health risks by walking more every day.
The more steps participants took, the lower their risk of CVD and early death, regardless of how much time they spent sitting. So while that doesn’t necessarily mean desk-bound people are a no-go, the researchers stress that it’s still important to make an effort to reduce sitting time overall.
“This is by no means an excuse for people to be sedentary,” says Matthew Ahmadi, a population health scientist at the University of Sydney in Australia.
“But this study sends an important public health message that all exercise is important and people can and should offset the health impacts of unavoidable sedentary time by increasing the number of steps they take each day.”
Ahmadi and his colleagues analyzed data from 72,174 volunteers participating in the UK Biobank, a large longitudinal dataset established in 2006 that will continue to track participants’ health for at least 30 years.
Each participant in the study had an average of 6.9 years’ worth of general health data. Participants wore an accelerometer on their wrist for seven days to estimate their physical activity levels, such as the number of steps they usually take and the amount of time they spend sitting.
The average sedentary time was 10.6 hours per day, so anyone who spent more time than this was considered “sedentary” and anyone who spent less time than this was considered “sedentary.”
The study did not include participants whose first two years of statistics may have been affected by poor health, so the results only apply to people who were generally healthy for at least the first two years of data. It is unclear whether the data included participants with disabilities that would affect their step counts.
The research team found that walking 9,000 to 10,000 steps per day was optimal to counter a sedentary lifestyle, lowering the risk of developing CVD by 21 percent and the risk of death by 39 percent.
The researchers found that 50% of the benefit occurred at about 4,000 to 4,500 steps per day, regardless of how much time participants spent sitting.
“Achieving a daily step count above the baseline of 2,200 steps was associated with reduced mortality and CVD risk regardless of length of time spent sitting,” Ahmadi and his colleagues write.
“Walking 9,000 to 10,000 steps per day optimally reduced mortality and incident CVD risk in sedentary participants.”
The study was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
An earlier version of this article was published in March 2024.
