Exercises based on the amount of steps you take can be equally as beneficial as exercises based on time, new research has claimed. Researchers argue that the study highlights the importance of step-based targets being added to guidelines. Physical activity reduces the risk of illness and infection, and promotes long life, and the NHS recommends that adults should do some type of physical activity every day.
It suggests that adults aged 19 to 65 should do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity a week. But with more and more people able to track the number of steps they take each day, through a mobile phone, smart watch or similar device, researchers from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Massachusetts, US, wanted to look at how time-based goals stack up against step-based ones. They found that higher levels of physical activity – whether assessed as step counts or time in moderate-to-vigorous activity – were associated with large risk reductions in death or cardiovascular disease.
The most active quarter of women in the study had 30% to 40% risk reductions compared with the least active quarter. People in the top three most active groups outlived those in the bottom group by an average of 2.22 and 2.
36 months respectively, based on time and step-based measurements. According to the findings, this was the case regardless of differences in body mass index (BMI). Lead author Rikuta Hamaya, a researcher.