Technology is readily available to help the everyday person keep track of the number of steps they take each day. However, a recent study explored whether the length of time participants walked affected the outcomes of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality.
At the end of the study, people who walked for longer stretches of time had a lower risk for all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease than those who walked for shorter lengths. These results suggest that how one reaches a step count can also affect health outcomes. Participants in this prospective cohort study were part of the UK Biobank and were taking 8,000 steps a day or fewer. After recruiting participants, researchers conducted physical exams and collected some data via questionnaires.
Participants wore an accelerometer to track steps for up to one week. Researchers then focused on participants who were taking an average of less than 8,000 steps daily. They further excluded participants based on factors like missing covariate data and already having cardiovascular disease. The final analytic sample had 33,560 participants.
Researchers divided walking bouts into four ranges: less than five minutes, five to less than ten minutes, ten to less than 15 minutes, and 15 minutes or more. They then placed participants into these groups based on which walking bout length most of their daily step counts came from.
About 43% of participants fell into the less than five-minute bout group, while only 8% were in the fifteen minutes or longer group. The five-minute walking bout participants were more likely to move less and have overweight or obesity.
The average follow-up time with participants was just under eight years. Researchers kept track of mortality and incidences of cardiovascular disease. The definition of cardiovascular disease excluded lymph diseases and high blood pressure. 735 participants died, and 3,119 experienced cardiovascular disease events.
Covariates for this research included components like smoking, age, total daily steps, and the amount of time participants remained sedentary. Researchers conducted additional sensitivity analyses to “to minimize bias attributable to reverse causation.” These analyses included excluding participants who experienced an event within the first five years and accounting for factors like daily calories. The results supported that walking for longer periods held the greatest benefit. People who got their steps from five-minute walking bouts had the highest cumulative all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease risk. In contrast, the group with the longest walking bouts had the lowest risk.
When excluding events that occurred in the first five years, researchers found that the results were similar but more minimized. Researchers also found that the greatest benefit was for people who were taking fewer than 5,000 steps daily.
Source: Here