Doing a certain number of steps per day can lead to a 'longer life', scientists say

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Carrying out at least 4,000 steps every day could help you to live a longer life, according to a new study.A team of Australian scientists have discovered that each daily step over 4,000 - and up to 10,000 - works to slash the risk of death and cardiovascular disease no matter how much remaining time is spent sitting or lying down.The University of Sydney team examined data on 72,174 individuals enrolled in the UK Biobank study - a major biomedical database - who had worn an accelerometer device on their wrist for seven days to measure how much physical activity they did.

The accelerometer data was used to estimate daily step count and time spent sedentary - sitting or lying down whilst awake. The median daily step count for participants was 6222 steps per day, and 2200 steps per day was taken as the reference point for assessing the effects of upping the step count.The median time spent sedentary was 10.6 hours a day, so study participants sedentary for 10.5 hours a day or more were considered to have high sedentary time.

Meanwhile, those who spent less than 10.5 hours a day sedentary had low sedentary time.Over an average 6.9 years follow up, 1633 deaths and 6190 cardiovascular disease events occurred.The results, which were published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, show that the ideal number of steps per day to counteract high sedentary time was between 9000 to 10000 steps per day.This amount of steps slashed mortality risk by 39 per cent and incident cardiovascular disease risk by 21 per cent.

In both cases, 50 per cent of the benefit was achieved at between 4000 and 4500 steps per day.The researchers hope that their findings will help to create more accurate recommendations for people's daily step count.D