Walk fast often and live long 

Times ago we’d say: after eating, you can live 99 steps by walking 100 steps. This was confirmed with a research recently published in America that has proved that frequent walking, especially brisk one, substantially reduced mortality risk.

01. Walking speed is an important factor influencing health benefits

The research included almost 85,000 adults, and the analysis found a strong link between the risk of death from any cause and the time spent conducting brisk walking each day. Just 15 minutes of brisk walking daily can lower the overall death rate by nearly 20%. The correlation between brisk walking and mortality risk was somewhat weakened when adjusted for other lifestyle factors, but still significantly linked. And a slow walk of over 3 hours per day cut the risk of death only by 4%. So it can be inferred that walking speed is a critically important factor stimulating the health benefits.

It is important to mention that prolonged brisk walking (60 minutes or more per day) is associated with a large decrease in the risk of death from cardiovascular causes, as well as a minor reduction in the risk of death from cancer, together with a small reduction in the risk of death from cancer.

A deeper cut showed that brisk walking was more effective in cutting the risk of death from cardiovascular diseases than cancer. While everyone can gain from brisk walking, the risk of death is reduced more in people with low health than in those who are well-trained.

The authors also recognize that the results underline the necessity of supporting walking on a daily basis as a practical and efficient strategy to raise health outcomes, and that public health campaigns and community initiatives ought to promote brisk walking as a feasible exercise modality.

02. Brisk walking is associated with reduced risk of several chronic conditions

The health benefits of brisk walking has always been among the main themes in research. A new study based on UK Biobank data reveals that moderate pace walking or brisk walking decreases the risk of arrhythmias (including atrial fibrillation, bradycardia, ventricular arrhythmias, etc.) comparing to slow walking, and the correlations are independent of the common cardiovascular risk factors.

One meta-analysis of 10 studies revealed that brisk walking at a pace of 4 km/h or more led to a significant drop in the risk of type 2 diabetes. Researchers state that pace is an essential indicator of general health and a key indicator of functional capacity; a faster pace is linked to better cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular strength both of which are related to a lowered risk of diabetes; and brisk walking is great for losing excess fat and it also helps insulin sensitivity to improve.

The studies made by scholars from the University of Cambridge showed that one has only to perform 11 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per day (75 minutes per week), such as brisk walking, in order to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, stroke, and certain cancers.

A research in Ireland published in one of the sub-journals of the Journal of the American Medical Association found an inverse dose-response relationship between depressive symptoms and risk of depression for age ≥50-year-old residents with physical activity of moderate to high intensity, while even a lower level than the guidelines recommended amount (150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week) only 100 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week (such as brisk walking for 20 minutes per day) can also decrease the risk of depression. It can be understood that brisk walking is an effective form of exercise.

03. It’s easier to live longer by walking fast

One should not stop walking fast but do it for a longer time. The analysis carried out on the British Bio-Database concluded that health and longevity are closely related to the speed of walking. The scientists discovered that people who walk fast have a lower risk of death even if they are less total physically active, watch TV longer, eat relatively unhealthily, drink alcohol and sleep less than those who walk slow and have a healthier lifestyle.

The latest guidelines recommend that adults should be engaged in physical activities of moderate intensity for at least 150 minutes or high-intensity activities of 75 minutes per week, but most say they can’t, compared to sticking to short brisk walks every day more easily.

The European Hypertension Guidelines recommend that patients with hypertension should do moderate-intensity aerobic exercise for at least 5 to 7 days per week for 30 minutes per day at a minimum, which is equivalent to performing at least 3,000 brisk steps (100 steps per minute for at least 30 minutes). A group of researchers from the Third Hospital of Peking University found that brisk walking can effectively help control blood pressure in patients with hypertension and that walking 4,000 to 8,000 steps a day has a better blood pressure-lowering effect.

A report published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology affirms that for the people who are at a high risk of coronary heart disease and are obese, have too much cholesterol in the blood, are hypertensive, diabetic, and smokers, moderate activity (going briskly for 40 minutes a day or walking at a normal speed for 1 hour is the equivalent) can lower the risk of coronary heart disease to a great extent, but it is unable to totally cancel out the harm caused by these factors.

To sum up, walking irregularly is better than sitting. A study made public at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle, and Cardiovascular Metabolic Health Congress demonstrated that the survival benefit is more obvious the more one sticks to fast walking.

Disclaimer: The following image/content has been generated by an Artificial Intelligence model and is not a photograph or a traditional human creation.