It doesn’t matter how much you sit — walking more could lower your risk of death and disease

 For people who spend long hours at a desk, new research offers encouraging news. A study from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre (Australia) suggests that increasing your daily step count may help reduce the health risks linked to prolonged sitting.

The findings, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, are based on data from more than 72,000 individuals. Researchers found that each increase in daily steps, up to about 10,000 steps per day, was associated with a lower risk of death (39 percent) and cardiovascular disease (21 percent). These benefits were seen regardless of how much time participants spent sitting.Why Daily Steps Matter for Health

Earlier research has already linked higher step counts with lower risks of death and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Other studies have shown that spending long periods sitting can raise those same risks. What makes this study different is that it directly examined whether walking more could help counteract the negative effects of sedentary behavior, using objective data from wearable devices.

Lead author and research fellow, Dr. Matthew Ahmadi, emphasized that walking is not a complete solution to excessive sitting. "This is by no means a get out of jail card for people who are sedentary for excessive periods of time, however, it does hold an important public health message that all movement matters and that people can and should try to offset the health consequences of unavoidable sedentary time by upping their daily step count."

Senior author Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis, Director of the Mackenzie Wearables Research Hub at the Charles Perkins Centre, highlighted the broader impact of this type of research. Studies that rely on wearable devices are opening new possibilities for understanding and improving public health.

"Step count is a tangible and easily understood measure of physical activity that can help people in the community, and indeed health professionals, accurately monitor physical activity. We hope this evidence will inform the first generation of device-based physical activity and sedentary behavior guidelines, which should include key recommendations on daily stepping," said Professor Stamatakis.

How Researchers Measured Steps and Sitting Time

To conduct the study, researchers analyzed information from 72,174 participants (average age 61; 58% female) in the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database. Each participant wore an accelerometer on their wrist for seven days, allowing researchers to track both step count and sedentary time, defined as time spent sitting or lying down while awake.

The team then monitored participants' health over time by linking their data to hospital records and death registries.

Source:ScienceDaily