Older people who only walk 4,000 daily steps once a week still reduce their risk of dying early by a quarter, a study suggests.
Staying active is known to bring a wide range of health benefits. But many people in their 60s, 70s and beyond may struggle for a variety of reasons to maintain the step count they used to reach. Until now it has been unclear how much people need to do as they age to reap the rewards.
Research led by Harvard University has some answers. The large prospective study examined not only how many steps older people took but how often they reached step targets across the week.
Researchers found achieving 4,000 steps per day on one or two days a week was associated with a significantly lower risk of death and lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), compared with not reaching this level on any day. The findings were published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The study followed 13,547 American women over 62, with 72 the average age. They wore activity trackers for seven consecutive days between 2011 and 2015 and were followed for over a decade. None had heart disease or cancer at the start of the study.
In the monitoring period to the end of 2024, 1,765 women died and 781 developed heart disease.
Clocking up at least 4,000 steps a day on one or two days of the week was associated with a 26% lower risk of death from all causes and a 27% lower risk of dying from heart disease, compared with not reaching this threshold on any day of the week.
For those achieving this step count on at least three days of the week, the lower risk of death from any cause increased to 40%, but remained at 27% for the risk of cardiovascular death.
The researchers said the important takeaway was that it is the amount people walk, rather than the number of days on which they achieve a certain number of steps, that is most important for reducing the risk of premature death.
There is no “best” way to take your steps, they added. The key thing is just to get your steps in. They concluded that a “greater number of steps, regardless of daily patterns, is associated with better health outcomes”.
On average, the women took 5,615 steps a day. This was an observational study, and as such no firm conclusions could be drawn about cause and effect. There were also several limitations to the research, notably that physical activity was assessed for only one week, and only in women.
Nevertheless, the researchers wrote: “The present study … suggests that frequency of meeting daily step thresholds is not critical (even 1to 2 days a week of [more than] 4,000 steps a day was related to lower mortality and CVD), and that step volume is more important than the frequency of meeting daily step thresholds in the older population.”
They added: “An important translational implication of these findings is that since step volume is the important driver of the inverse associations, there is no ‘better’ or ‘best’ pattern to take steps; individuals can undertake [physical activity] in any preferred pattern (eg ‘slow and steady’ v ‘bunched patterns’) for lower mortality and CVD risk, at least among older women.”
They concluded: “These findings provide additional evidence for considering including step metrics in the next [physical activity] guidelines, and that ‘bunching’ steps is a viable option for health.”
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