Walking 7,000 steps a day may be enough to protect against a number of diseases, a new study suggests.
While many people aim to get 10,000 steps in their daily routine, some find this target challenging to achieve.
But new research suggests "sizeable" health benefits – including a reduced risk of dementia, heart disease and premature death – can still be seen from fewer daily steps.
Even modest step counts of 4,000 steps a day can reap benefits over very low levels of activity, experts found.
But experts noted that "10,000 steps per day will still be better than 7,000 steps" – with the higher step count leading to more health benefits.
The new study, led by academics from the University of Sydney in Australia, involved researchers examining data from dozens of studies worldwide, including those from the United Kingdom, on tens of thousands of adults.
People who walked 7,000 steps each day appeared to have a protective effect against several diseases, including a 25% lower risk of heart disease, a 14% reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, a 38% lower risk of dementia and a 22% reduced risk of depression.
The researchers also found that when people walked 7,000 daily steps, compared to walking 2,000 steps, they were 47% less likely to die during the follow-up periods of the studies analyzed.
And while the number of steps walked did not sway whether or not a person got cancer, people who walked more steps were significantly less likely to die from cancer – with 37% lower odds of cancer death compared to people who walked fewer steps.
"Although 10,000 steps per day can still be a viable target for those who are more active, 7,000 steps per day is associated with clinically meaningful improvements in health outcomes and might be a more realistic and achievable target for some," the authors wrote in the journal Lancet Public Health.
They added: "7,000 steps per day was associated with sizeable risk reductions across most outcomes, compared with the reference of 2,000 steps per day."
Commenting on the study, Daniel Bailey, Reader – Sedentary Behaviour and Health, Brunel University of London, said: "The finding that doing 5,000-7,000 steps per day is an important addition to the literature, which helps to debunk the myth that 10,000 steps per day should be the target for optimal health."
"This study suggested that 5,000-7,000 steps per day can significantly reduce the risk of many health outcomes, but that does not mean you cannot get benefits if you don’t meet this target."
"The study also found that health risks were reduced with each 1000 extra steps per day, up to a maximum of 12,000 steps per day. So just adding more steps from your starting point can have important benefits for health."
Andrew Scott, senior lecturer in clinical exercise physiology at the University of Portsmouth, added: "More important than the exact number of steps, it demonstrates that overall, more is always better and people should not focus too much on the numbers, particularly on days where activity is limited."
"The steps per day are useful when people's exercise is weight-bearing; however, cycling, swimming and rowing are not well-represented by the steps per day model."
