Cardiovascular Benefits Seen With as Few as 2,600 Steps Daily

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 6, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Cardiovascular disease (CVD) benefits can be seen from as few as about 2,600 steps per day, according to a review recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Niels A. Stens, from Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, Netherlands, and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis to quantify dose-response associations between objectively measured step count metrics in the general population. The analysis included 111,309 individuals from 12 studies.

The researchers found significant risk reductions with 2,517 steps/day for all-cause mortality (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 0.92) and 2,735 steps/day for incident CVD (aHR, 0.89) versus 2,000 steps/day (reference). There was a nonlinear risk reduction seen for additional steps and risk for all-cause mortality and incident CVD with an optimal dose at 8,763 (aHR, 0.40) and 7,126 steps/day (aHR, 0.49), respectively. There was an independent relationship observed for increments from a low to an intermediate or a high cadence and risk reductions of all-cause mortality. There was no dose-response association seen with sex. After stratification for assessment device and wear location, the investigators found pronounced risk reductions for hip-worn accelerometers versus pedometers and wrist-worn accelerometers.

"These findings can extend contemporary physical activity prescriptions given the easy-to-understand concept of step count," the authors write.

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