People who accumulate their daily steps through longer walks have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and death than those who undertake a number of shorter walks, new findings have shown.
Researchers set out to evaluate whether shorter or longer bouts of walking were more effective in reducing risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease, irrespective of the number of steps taken.
They looked at data from just over 33,500 people who complete 8,000 or fewer daily steps.
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They were grouped according to the length of their step patterns: shorter than five minutes, five to shorter than 10 minutes, 10 to shorter than 15 minutes, and 15 minutes or longer.
Just under half (42.9%) of the group accumulated most of their daily steps in bouts lasting less than five minutes.
The figure dropped as the duration increased – 33.5% accumulated most of their daily steps in five to 10-minute bouts, 15.5% in 10 to 15-minute bouts, and 8.0% in 15-minute bouts or longer.
The results demonstrated the impact of walking duration on health risk, with
all-cause mortality risk at 9.5 years being 4.36% among those who did shorter bouts – less than five minutes – compared to 0.80% for those who undertook 15-minute bouts or longer.
For cardiovascular disease, the effect was more pronounced.
Those who undertook shorter bouts of walking – less than five minutes – had a cumulative risk at 9.5 years of 13.03%, compared to 4.39% for those completing bouts of 15 minutes or longer.
The research team say their findings should encourage people, particularly those who are less active, to walk for longer periods of time.
Read more in Annals of Internal Medicine
