Research results indicate that for adults with low physical activity, how steps are accumulated has a greater impact on long-term health outcomes than the total number of steps taken in a day. In other words, those who practiced continuous walking for a long time without interruption had a significantly lower risk of overall mortality and cardiovascular disease compared to those who repeated short movements.
A research team led by Professor Borja del Pozo Cruz from the Department of Medicine, Health, and Sports Science at the European University of Madrid conducted a large-scale population-based cohort study using data from the UK Biobank, analyzing the relationship between walking patterns and long-term health outcomes in adults with low physical activity.
The researchers included 33,560 adults who walked an average of less than 8,000 steps per day in their analysis. The median average daily step count of the participants was 5,165 steps, and all belonged to a group generally classified as 'low activity'. The researchers focused not just on the simple step count, but on how long the walking was sustained in continuous segments throughout the day.
Walking patterns were classified into four groups based on continuous walking time: △less than 5 minutes △5 minutes or more but less than 10 minutes △10 minutes or more but less than 15 minutes △15 minutes or more. 42.9% of all participants accumulated most of their steps in very short walks of less than 5 minutes, while 33.5% primarily walked in the 5-10 minute range. 15.5% were centered around 10-15 minutes of continuous walking, and only 8.0% had a habit of walking continuously for more than 15 minutes. The researchers tracked these individuals for an average of 9.5 years to analyze all-cause mortality and the occurrence of cardiovascular disease.
As a result, the risk of mortality showed a gradual decrease as continuous walking time increased. The overall mortality risk for the group whose walking was mostly less than 5 minutes was an average of 4.36%, but it decreased to 1.83% for the group centered around 5-10 minutes of walking. The mortality risk for the 10-15 minute continuous walking group was 0.84%, and it was the lowest at 0.80% for the group that walked continuously for more than 15 minutes.
The trend was even more pronounced for the risk of cardiovascular disease. During the follow-up period, the cumulative risk of cardiovascular disease was 13.03% for the group walking less than 5 minutes, but it decreased to 11.09% for the 5-10 minute walking group. The continuous walking group of 10-15 minutes had a lower risk of 7.71%, and the group that practiced continuous walking for more than 15 minutes recorded the lowest figure at 4.39%.
Especially for very inactive adults who walk less than 5,000 steps a day, these effects were even more evident. In this group, regardless of the total step count, the longer the walking was maintained in one go, the significantly lower the risks of mortality and cardiovascular disease.
The researchers explained, "For those with low physical activity, it shows that even without significantly increasing the daily step count goal, simply adopting a walking habit of intentionally walking for a certain period instead of repeating short movements can lower health risks." This indicates that not only the 'amount' of walking but also the 'structure' and 'pattern' should be considered important in public health strategies.
The results of this study were recently published in the ⟪Annals of Internal Medicine⟫, a journal of the American College of Physicians.
