‘All or none’ does not apply to walking, anything is better than nothing

Walking below recommended levels is also associated with lower all-cause mortality, even if the recommended goal is not met says the results of large prospective cohort study published online in in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The current public health guidelines recommend >150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity per week; a goal met by only 50% of US adults.

Walking is the most common form of moderate- or vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA), and is known to be associated with lower incidence of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and breast and colon cancers. But, its association with all-cause mortality has not been examined so far.

The study looked at data from 62,178 men (mean age 70.7 years) and 77,077 women (mean age 68.9 years), who were followed up for a period of 13 years from 1999–2012. The researchers studied the effect of moderate- or vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) on all-cause mortality.

During the study period, 24,688 men and 18,933 women died.

The mean age of men was 71 years and 69 years for women, about 5.8% of men and 6.6% of women reported no MVPA when the study started. These ‘inactive’ individuals were 26% (HR=1.26) likely to die prematurely as compared to subjects who were active but not to the recommended level (only for <2 hours/week).

Meeting the minimum recommendation of walking one or two times per week was associated with 20% lower risk of mortality (HR=.77) which was at par with any MVPA.

Walking that extra mile than what was recommended did not add any extra benefit and the benefits were equivalent to meeting the requirements.

Walking one or two times per week as per the minimum recommendation also reduced the CVD and cancer mortality by 20% and 9% respectively.

All these results were adjusted by sex, baseline age, BMI, prevalent disease status, and leisure-time sitting.

Alpa Patel, PhD, the lead author and researcher at the American Cancer Society opines, “walking has been described as the “perfect exercise” because it is a simple action that is free, convenient, does not require any special equipment or training, and can be done at any age.”

The walking intensity in this study was not ‘power walk’ or ‘strolling in the garden’ but average walking that may make you slight breathless and you cover about a mile in 20 minutes. This constitutes moderate intensity activity.

In absolute figures not corrected for the confounders, it was seen that there was 4293 per 100,000 deaths for inactive participants vs  2851 for walking less than the recommended amount. That is 1442 fewer deaths per 100,000 than inactive participants.

And the number of deaths were further reduced to 2088 per 100,000 for those who met the walking guidelines.

A lot of people are now a day do a walking meeting instead of sitting meeting in the office. 

The authors conclude, “This study shows that engaging in walking is associated with increased longevity and has the potential to improve the public’s health significantly.”

Media: wisegeek. 

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