Is it scientific to say that you should exercise 10,000 steps a day?

Some people are fanatical about exercise, such as I-Min Lee, who walks rather than drives, and she runs a lot.I-Min Lee has a pedometer to keep track of steps.The 59-year-old says: "It made me realize that every little step we take during the day can add up to so many steps."

I-Min Lee is an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Massachusetts who focuses on how physical activity promotes health and prevents chronic disease. Her most recent study was actually about "steps". Specifically, how many steps a day does an older person need to take in order to have significant health benefits.

For decades, experts have been advising us to take 10,000 steps a day to stay healthy. This number has even been put on fitness trackers as a goal. It's not entirely clear where the phrase "10,000 steps" came from, but it seems to have originated in the 1960s with the Japanese pedometer manpo-kei, which means "10,000 steps".

I-Min Lee wonders if the number 10,000 is reliable or not.

Figuring things like this out isn't easy. Most studies of the long-term value of physical activity that occur outside of a controlled laboratory setting rely on self-reporting, which is often inaccurate.Lee and her colleagues solved this problem by examining data from 16,741 women between the ages of 62 and 101.

The women were an average of 72 years old and took an average of 5,499 steps per day. A total of 504 women died during the four-year follow-up period. Data analysis of the deaths showed that 275 of them were the least physically active of the experiment participants, averaging only 2,700 steps per day. This group that exercised the least had the highest risk of death, the study showed. In contrast, women who averaged 4,400 steps per day had a reduced mortality rate of 411 TP3 T. The more steps taken per day, the lower the mortality rate fell.

In further linear analyses, the researchers observed that the risk of death continued to decline as they walked more per day, but after reaching 7,500 steps/day, the risk leveled off.

Also, for women who took the same number of steps per day, how fast or slow they walked was not associated with the risk of death.

I-Min Lee said, "For many older people or people who are not physically active, 10,000 steps a day can be a very daunting goal." But based on the results of the study, she advises, "If you're not physically active, adding only a very small number of steps per day, such as an extra 2,000, can be very beneficial to your health. ...... You don't need to reach 10,000 steps." Don't think of these as "workouts," she adds. Think of it as whatever you want. For example, instead of finding the nearest parking spot outside a grocery store or concert hall, park in the first spot you can find and walk there.

The results of this new study should be applicable to men in the same age group. We know that the relationship between physical activity levels and health is similar for men and women. However, the effects of walking on younger people or other different populations need to be studied further. The effects on quality of life and risk of more specific diseases also need to be explored more in future studies.

Although this was an observational study, the authors also still managed to corroborate that the correlation was causally related to a considerable degree by controlling somewhat for the study population. For example, women with heart disease, cancer, diabetes, underweight, and poor self-assessed health were excluded from the study, as were data from the first year of follow-up. Previous studies have also shown a positive effect of physical activity in terms of short-term changes in markers such as blood pressure, insulin levels, blood glucose levels, lipid levels, and inflammation.

Tom Yates, who researches the health aspects of physical activity at the University of Leicester, said, "This study is a 'great contribution to the literature demonstrating the value of moderate physical activity'. A great contribution to the 'literature demonstrating the value of moderate physical activity'.

Professor Kaberi Dasgupta of McGill University told CNN that the new study "does a great job," that the average observation period of four years is "reasonable," and that the large number of participants in the experiment means that subtle differences can be detected.

Stephen Blair, a professor at the University of South Carolina, has done similar research, noting that lack of activity is "the biggest public health problem of the 21st century."

Dr. Deepa Iyengar of the McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) commented, "This study suggests that it's the total amount of physical activity that's more important, rather than a specific exercise pattern." Research from Boston University School of Medicine not long ago also found that effective exercise is simpler than people think for slowing down brain aging: for example, walking enough to get 5,000 steps a day and adding an hour of low-intensity physical activity.

Many studies have shown that walking and other forms of moderate physical activity are not only good for the body, but also for the brain.

Yaakov Stern, a Columbia University researcher, divided 132 people between the ages of 20 and 67 who did not exercise into two groups. One did stretching for six months. The other group did moderate aerobic exercise four times a week, including walking on a treadmill or pedaling a stationary bike. Each person then took a test to measure executive function, concentration, organization and ability to achieve goals.

Stern said, "People who participated in the exercise tested about 10 and 20 years younger than their actual age at age 40 and 60, respectively." The findings are published in the January online edition of the journal Neurology.

Scientists aren't sure what physical activity does for the brain, but it has been shown to improve mood, reduce stress, and help improve sleep-which in turn improves brainpower. Meanwhile, studies have also shown that moderate physical activity can also combat depression and even increase happiness.

You don't really have to take 10,000 steps, take 4,000 or so and you'll slowly notice an improvement in your health.