US Edition
Walking 15,000 steps a week for two years could add years to your life, a London School of Economics (LSE) study has found.
Researchers found that regular walking adds 2.5 years to the life expectancy of physically inactive men and three years for inactive women.
Around a third of Britons are considered physically inactive because they complete less than 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week – or around 22 minutes of brisk walking per day.
If just half of inactive people walked the 15,000 steps a week, it would reduce the burden of disease and death on society and save the NHS £15 billion per year, the study said.
Experts from LSE and health insurance firm Vitality found that the benefits were more pronounced the older people were.
For example, people aged 65 and over could cut their risk of death by 52 per cent if they sustained a habit of walking 7,500 steps three or more times a week.
This dropped to 38 per cent for those aged 45 to 65 years old and was 27 per cent for the population as a whole.
Exercise cuts obesity
Regular exercise among those who are inactive reduces the chance of becoming obese or developing Type 2 diabetes, which can lead to heart disease and other conditions that reduce life expectancy.
Researchers said a 55-year-old with Type 2 diabetes could reduce their risk of death by 40 per cent if they start walking 5,000 steps three times a week.
Around five million people in Britain have diabetes, which costs the NHS around 10 per cent of its annual budget, currently around £160 billion.
The study of one million people over 10 years revealed that the benefits of walking plateaued for people walking 7,500 steps more than four times a week.
The results suggest fewer steps are needed to maintain good health than the acclaimed milestone of 10,000 steps a day made popular by a Japanese marketing gimmick in the 1960s.
Even a single day of 5,000 steps has benefits for health and could save the NHS £4 billion each year through fewer people being hospitalised, experts said.
‘Power of small behavioural changes’
Prof Joan Costa-Font, professor of health economics at LSE, said the findings were “a clear call to action for policy makers” to improve public health.
“Successful habit-based interventions can lengthen life expectancy, entail considerable savings for public health services, improve productivity, and help address the significant long-term challenges posed by mental health, social isolation, and non-communicable diseases such as cancer and Type 2 diabetes,” he said.
Neville Koopowitz, chief executive of Vitality, said the research showed “the power of small behavioural changes”.
“Taking consistent steps to achieve a health habit is key, and we can see within this data that it’s never too late to start,” he said. “This approach to habitual physical activity and exercise has the potential to completely transform and improve our collective health.”
It comes after a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine last week found that any steps above 2,200 per day had benefits for heart health and mortality, with those managing 4,000 cutting their risk of an early death by 20 per cent.
For this study, researchers studied one million Vitality members from South Africa and the UK over a 10-year period.
Those who tracked their daily activity for at least five days of a week, recorded an average of 5,230 steps.
It found that for people aged 65 and over, just 2,500 steps a day improved health and reduced the risk of death, and that the benefits of walking tapered off after 6,400 steps a day, which was lower than for the general population.
The research was published as part of a white paper to quantify habits and their impact on health: The Vitality Habit Index.