New Study Proves Taking 10K Steps Daily Can Reduce Early Death—How Accurate Is It?

Taking 10,000 steps daily has been debated for the past years. Many health experts claim that doing this could drastically improve your overall health.

On the other hand, other medical researchers said that there's no evidence that taking thousands of steps per day is good for the health.

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A man jogs in the park of the Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome on May 4, 2020, as Italy starts to ease its lockdown, during the country's lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 infection, caused by the novel coronavirus.

Now, a new study proved that taking between 9,000 to 10,000 steps every day can reduce early death risks or prevent heart disease-related health incidents.

New Study Proves Taking 10K Steps Daily Can Reduce Early Death

The new study was conducted by researchers at the University of Sydney, Australia. One of the involved health experts is Matthew N. Ahmadi.

Together with his colleagues, they determined that taking 10,000 steps per day is linked to decreased early death risks. According to New Scientist's latest report, they analyzed over 72,000 participants.

Most of the volunteers are 61 years old. To track how many steps they take per day, all participants wore a movement-tracking accelerometer.

They were tracked for less than seven years. During this period, 1,633 of them died and 6,190 suffered from heart illness-related events. Involved researchers analyzed factors that could influence their risk of illness or death.

These include smoking, diet quality, and exercise. They discovered that participants' optimal number of steps each day is between 9,000 to 10,000.

They said that those who are taking 10,000 steps per day have a 39% lower risk of dying early. Aside from this, their heart-related incident risks are 21% lower as well.

"It does appear to support the notion that the originally non-evidence based 10,000 steps target may indeed be about right," explained Loughborough University's Dale Esliger.

How To Achieve 10K Steps Per Day

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Elderly women walk at a fast pace in a park during the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic on April 20, 2021 in Berlin, Germany. Outdoor exercise has for many people become vital during the ongoing pandemic lockdown for maintaining positive well-being.

Achieving 10,000 steps per day is not as easy as you think. More athletic individuals tend to do this through jogging or even running.

But, if you're not used to extreme physical activities, the best thing you can do is walk. To give you an idea, 10,000 steps is equivalent to 8 km.

This is around 1 hour and 40 minutes of walking; it will still depend on your stride length and walking speed. There are numerous things you can do to achieve 10,000 steps per day without actually spending too much time walking on the street.

Medibank provided some tips you can rely on to achieve 10,000 steps per day:

Take your dog for a walk.
If you can, walk part of the way (or all) to work.
Instead of taking the elevator, use the stairs.
Find a farther parking spot.
Invite friends for a scenic walk instead of meeting up for a coffee or grabbing a beer.
When you're scrolling through your phone, walk around.