A new study finds taking one 10–15-minute walk lowers heart disease and death risk significantly more than taking several short strolls, even when total steps are the same.
Longer walks beat short strolls when it comes to your heart health even if your daily step count is the same.
A new study finds continuous 10–15-minute walks significantly lower the risk of heart disease and early death compared to quick, under-5-minute bouts, especially for sedentary or less active people.
Researchers monitored about 33,500 UK adults who logged 8,000 or fewer steps a day.
Over nearly a decade, those who took mostly sub-5-minute walks had a 4.4% risk of death,
compared with just 0.8% among people who typically walked 10–15 minutes or longer at a time.
For heart disease and stroke combined, the risk was 13% with sub-5-minute bouts versus about 4.4% with 15-minute-plus walks.
The link was strongest in sedentary people who logged under 5,000 steps a day, according to the results.
The authors say this suggests that longer bouts of walking may pack extra payoff if you’re starting with a lower step count.
Source: Annals of Internal Medicine
Author Affiliations: Universidad Europea University of Sydney, Champalimaud Foundation, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
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