SCIENTISTS have revealed the optimum number of steps per day to reduce your risk of heart disease.
We live in an ever more sedentary society but lucky for us, a major study has shown every step counts when it comes to battling illness.
Research from the University of Sydney revealed each step up to 10,000 reduces the risk of death and cardiovascular disease.
The study aimed to investigate if walking can combat the potential risks of leading a sedentary lifestyle.
It used data from the British Biobank study, where over 70,000 participants wore health tracking watches.
The participants’ median number of daily steps was 6222 per day.
In comparison, the lowest 5% of participants walked just 2200 steps a day on average.
The median sedentary time was 10.6 hours a day.
Over a period of 6.9 years, 1633 deaths and three cardiovascular events occurred.
This allowed researchers to calculate the optimal number of daily steps we should be taking to counteract a sedentary lifestyle.
They found that walking 9000-10,000 steps a day could reduce the risk of mortality by 39% and the risk of cardiovascular events by 21%.
However, just 4000-4500 steps could be enough to give you half of these benefits.
In fact, any step count higher than 2200 a day was associated with lower mortality rates and cardiovascular events.
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