It seems that taking more steps every day can reduce your risk of developing certain types of diseases, according to the results of a study.
Obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, depression, and sleep apnea are some of the health issues that can be avoided by cranking up the number and intensity of daily steps.
While previous studies have come to similar conclusions, this is the first piece of research to be based on commercial activity tracking devices and linked to electronic health records.
The data provides new, empiric evidence of activity levels associated with chronic disease risk and suggests that integration of commercial Wearable data into the EHR may be useful to support clinical care.
An average of four years of activity per participant was recorded, with the sample based on people who wore their own fitness tracker for at least six months.
The rates of disease in the general population were compared with the rates of disease in the group.
As steps increased, the risk of many conditions decreased. The benefit of adding more steps was not available in the case of hypertension and diabetes.
Around 8,200 steps and above seems to be the best place to reduce the risk of conditions such as Obesity, sleep apnea, and gastroesophageal reflux disease.
The researchers found that people who increased their daily steps from 6,000 to 11,000 were less likely to become obese.
The association is strong enough to indicate that taking more steps each day and increasing the intensity to a brisker pace can reduce your risk of disease.
Past studies have monitored physical activity over short periods of time using research-grade devices and looking at health outcomes years or even decades later, whereas this new research was able to analyze years of activity data collected daily from patients' own Wearable Devices
Although some fidelity is lost between research-grade and commercial devices, data from the latter is highly generalizable to a large portion of the public who own such devices.
The people involved in the study were mostly young, white, female, and college-educated, who were more active than the average adult. The study authors think this is a good thing.
The fact that we were able to detect strong associations between steps and disease in this active sample suggests that there are even stronger associations in a more sedentary population.
They want to use bigger and more diverse samples of people, including those with activity levels that mirror the general population.
According to previous studies, getting in several thousand steps a day is enough to help you live longer, as well as planned and consistent walking.
The researchers behind the new study think that daily step routines could be included as part of a personalized health plan.
"Although validation in a more diverse sample is needed, these findings provide a real-world evidence-base for clinical guidance regarding activity levels that are necessary to reduce disease risk," they wrote.
The research was published in a journal.
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