Brisk walking could help you live longer

Few subjects have attracted as much quackery throughout history as pills, potions and promises claiming to slow ageing, increase vitality or prolong life. Still, among the hype and empty assertions, several enduring truths stand out.

Hippocrates, often regarded as the father of modern medicine, declared as early as 400 BC: "Walking is man's best medicine." More than 2,000 years on, scientific evidence is at last beginning to support that insight.

Those taking more than 8,000 steps daily have half the risk of premature death of people who take fewer than 5,000 steps - the cut-off associated with a sedentary lifestyle. The gains generally level off beyond 8,000 steps, however, casting doubt on the widely accepted 10,000-steps-a-day target.

That target was not founded on scientific research at all, but on advertising. The 10,000-step aim came from a Japanese marketing campaign in the 1960s for the first commercially available pedometer, the manpo-kei, a name that literally means "10,000 steps meter".

More recently, scientists have examined a straightforward but significant issue: are all steps equally valuable, or does walking at a faster pace - more than 100 steps a minute, roughly 4.8 to 6.4 km/h - produce greater health benefits?

Brisk walking, ageing and heart health

Growing evidence indicates that pace is genuinely important for ageing and cardiovascular health. Replacing a 14-minute daily stroll with a seven-minute brisk walk has been linked with a 14% lower risk of heart disease.

Research involving more than 450,000 UK adults used a genetic indicator of biological age. It found that, by middle age, a lifetime of brisk walking was associated with a biological age up to 16 years younger than that of people who had walked slowly throughout their lives.

A subsequent study indicated that the benefits of brisk walking are available even when started later in life. Modelling suggested that an inactive 60-year-old woman or man could add about one year to their life expectancy simply by incorporating a ten-minute brisk walk into their everyday routine.

Brisk walking's capacity to forecast later health also illustrates its value. It has proved a stronger predictor of death from heart disease than established measures such as blood pressure and cholesterol. It is also a more powerful predictor than many other lifestyle indicators, including diet, obesity levels and overall physical activity.

Indeed, perhaps the most revealing question a doctor could put to a patient is: "How fast is your walking pace in comparison to other people?"

A halo of benefits from walking

Brisk walking may not, however, offer extra advantages for every health outcome or in every setting. For instance, it is less clear whether it reduces cancer risk more effectively than light-intensity walking.

One recent study found that total walking was linked to lower rates of 13 different cancers, yet detected no additional benefit from walking briskly. Interrupting long periods of sitting with low-intensity pottering about has likewise been shown to produce substantial metabolic effects.

Walking's benefits extend well beyond physical health. It may support brain function and can double the production of creative ideas. The brain networks involved in memory and imagination are also those activated by whole-body movement.

Many people already make use of this effect, walking while they ponder difficulties and reach solutions or insights that might otherwise remain out of reach. Setting matters too: walking in natural surroundings is thought to amplify its mental-health and cognitive benefits.

So-called "nature prescriptions" for clinical populations have applied these ideas to encourage more walking, improving both physical and mental health.

Walking as prevention for long-term conditions

Physical inactivity is a key contributor to the modern epidemic of long-term conditions, including diabetes and heart disease, seen in both industrialised and developing economies. Estimates suggest that tackling physical inactivity could prevent 3.9 million premature deaths each year.

Yet healthcare systems are predominantly organised around treatment rather than prevention: people become unwell and are then given medicines to manage their condition. On average, bringing a new medicine to market costs US$1 billion; despite those research and development expenses, such medicines can still produce substantial shareholder profits, demonstrating the vast scale of the health economy.

If even a small proportion of this spending were redirected towards public-health programmes that expand opportunities for everyone to walk and be physically active, the need for an increasingly sophisticated medical-management ecosphere might diminish.

Put simply, if you are looking for the elixir of life, looking down at your feet would not be a bad place to start.

Thomas E. Yates, Professor of Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour and Health, Diabetes Research Centre, University of Leicester

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.