Researchers analyzed the daily movements of 64,743 middle-aged adults from the UK Biobank. Participants wore a wrist sensor that estimated their steps and pace. Their average age was 61.5 years. The scientists then tracked deaths for several years to look for links with these walking habits.
Two parameters were studied together. The first was simply the daily step count. The second measured the pace during the 30 most active minutes of the day, without those minutes necessarily being consecutive. This method distinguishes a day with many relaxed steps from a shorter but more dynamic day.
A person walking.
Daniel Reche · Pexels
The results do not point to a single goal that applies to everyone. Among people taking fewer than 5,000 steps per day, a faster pace was associated with lower mortality. For example, at around 80 steps per minute, the observed risk was lower than that of the reference group, which walked little and slowly.
Another interesting result: taking fewer than 5,000 steps at a fairly brisk pace was associated with a risk reduction close to that observed between 5,000 and 7,500 steps taken more slowly. In other words, quantity and pace seem able to partly compensate for each other. This may matter for someone who lacks time or cannot walk very much.
The number of steps nevertheless remains important. In this study, the lowest risk of death was associated with a range of 7,500 to 10,000 daily steps. For pace, the researchers observed the most favorable values at around 90 to 100 steps per minute during the 30 most active minutes.
These numbers do not constitute an individual prescription. An easy pace for a trained person may require considerable effort from someone else. In practice, brisk walking can also be recognized by breathing: it becomes more pronounced, while still allowing the person to speak in short sentences.
Above all, caution is needed when interpreting the direction of the observed link. The study is observational: it associates certain walking habits with lower mortality, without demonstrating that they directly cause it. The researchers accounted for many factors, but health status, lifestyle, or other differences between participants may still influence the results.
The authors now want step-based recommendations to better take these two dimensions into account. For people who find it difficult to increase their daily step count, pace could thus become an indicator to examine in future health recommendations and interventions.