Yet another article about how walking can extend one's life expectancy - https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... tudy-finds
As someone who thoroughly enjoys walking a few thousand steps most days I'm more than happy to believe the conclusions reached, but as with many such articles I can't help wondering whether the statistics are actually meaningful.
The reason I'm sceptical is that I would expect that most people who walk several thousand steps a day are doing so consciously as a form of exercise.
People who take conscious exercise are by definition concerned about their health, and are therefore likely to take lots of other steps to enhance their longevity, such as getting plenty of sleep, limiting their intake of alcohol and unhealthy foods and so on.
It therefore seems to me that these other measures are just as likely to be the explanation for a longer life as accumulating lots of steps.
But as I've no real knowledge of statistics I accept that I may be missing something, so if I am kindly enlighten me
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Do these figures mean anything?
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: Do these figures mean anything?
Clitheroekid wrote:It therefore seems to me that these other measures are just as likely to be the explanation for a longer life as accumulating lots of steps.
Thee days this kind of study doesn't get published in a half-decent journal unless it looks at those kinds of confounding factors. This study was based on people in the UK Biobank so they're very well characterised, and the authors looked at factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, education, smoking status, alcohol consumption, fruit and vegetable consumption (servings per day), parental history of CVD and cancer, medication use (cholesterol, insulin and hypertension) and sleep time (hours/day), waist circumference, glycated haemoglobin A1C, high-density and low-density lipoprotein, diastolic and systolic blood pressure, and triglycerides.
In general they were all within 1-2% the same between the two main study groups. What the newspaper article doesn't make particularly clear is that this study was mainly aimed at comparing between people doing the same number of steps (low or high) who spent low or high amounts of time sedentary - so for instance someone who walks a few miles to work and then sits at a computer all day versus someone who is just constantly doing small amounts of walking all through the day. Long periods of inactivity are known to be associated with ill health, the question was whether that was true even when someone was doing a lot of steps.
And the short version is that what matters is how many steps you take, not how long you're sedentary for. So it's OK to sit at a computer all day, as long as you get your steps in on the way to work, or by doing sport in the evening.
And FWIW, I think you'd be surprised at how number of steps in the day *doesn't* correlate with the extent to which you seek out healthy behaviour. I've managed over 25k steps on a pub crawl, and 10+k at work without really thinking about it. I know people who walk many miles at work without being any kind of health freak, that's just what the job demands. But in any case, this study was trying to correct for the obvious things (and for instance the people with less sedentary time were eg drinking a bit more than those with more sedentary time).
The paper is here : https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024 ... 023-107221
OTOH, the tendency now is a bit away from step counts and more about "exercise time", with a target of 150 minutes/week of moderate exercise for adults under 65, with vigorous exercise counting double :
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/p ... -19-to-64/
https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/ba ... /index.htm
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- Lemon Slice
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Re: Do these figures mean anything?
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Last edited by MuddyBoots on March 7th, 2024, 10:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Do these figures mean anything?
Clitheroekid wrote:Yet another article about how walking can extend one's life expectancy - https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... tudy-finds
As someone who thoroughly enjoys walking a few thousand steps most days I'm more than happy to believe the conclusions reached, but as with many such articles I can't help wondering whether the statistics are actually meaningful.
The reason I'm sceptical is that I would expect that most people who walk several thousand steps a day are doing so consciously as a form of exercise.
People who take conscious exercise are by definition concerned about their health, and are therefore likely to take lots of other steps to enhance their longevity, such as getting plenty of sleep, limiting their intake of alcohol and unhealthy foods and so on.
It therefore seems to me that these other measures are just as likely to be the explanation for a longer life as accumulating lots of steps.
But as I've no real knowledge of statistics I accept that I may be missing something, so if I am kindly enlighten me
I think the most interesting bit in the article is that part quoted in the headline "Every step above 2,200 steps a day reduces risk of early death"
That would be about equivalent of only walking one mile over the entire day and I am not sure that little would count as "conscious exercise", or indicate an otherwise health conscious life style.
It could, however, indicate that those who don't manage that should be booked in for the knackers yard?! i.e. it's the dedicated sloths that are skewing the figures at the low end rather than the ramblers at the top.
Also, their statement that half the benefit is achieved at around 4000+ steps suggests the improvement might be continuous between 2000 and 10000 steps - I am not sure I would have expected that; I think I would have assumed there was bit more effort required before any noticeable gain.
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- Lemon Slice
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Re: Do these figures mean anything?
Clitheroekid wrote:Yet another article about how walking can extend one's life expectancy - https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... tudy-finds
As someone who thoroughly enjoys walking a few thousand steps most days I'm more than happy to believe the conclusions reached, but as with many such articles I can't help wondering whether the statistics are actually meaningful.
The reason I'm sceptical is that I would expect that most people who walk several thousand steps a day are doing so consciously as a form of exercise.
People who take conscious exercise are by definition concerned about their health, and are therefore likely to take lots of other steps to enhance their longevity, such as getting plenty of sleep, limiting their intake of alcohol and unhealthy foods and so on.
It therefore seems to me that these other measures are just as likely to be the explanation for a longer life as accumulating lots of steps.
But as I've no real knowledge of statistics I accept that I may be missing something, so if I am kindly enlighten me
Maybe when one starts by being concerned about, and increasing, the number of steps done in a day, the attention to other lifestyle factors follows on from that.
I'm pretty good on the walking, getting lots of sleep and eating healthy food aspects. Limiting intake of alcohol is a work in progress
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Re: Do these figures mean anything?
I'll give an idea of what I do.
When I'm in full exercise/healthy mode this is my regime.
10 hours exercise a week - split across walking/cycling/YAYOG [bodyweight exercises].
They recommend you combine cardio + muscle building exercise.
I broke down the YAYOG to 4*15 min sessions a week.
I try to eat as healthily as possible - including at least 2 days vegetarian.
Muesli for breakfast every day - with full fat milk. A mix of homemade + bought with extra nuts.
Lunch: homemade salad Mon/Wed/Fri with bread+egg + homemade vinaigrette. Homemade soup Sun/Tue/Thu.
Vegetarian Indian Mon/Thu. Whatever the boss cooks the other days.
I bake my own bread - seeded wholemeal [Panasonic bread maker].
I take a number of health supplements a day - this includes low dose aspirin [bowel cancer] + vitamin D [osteoporosis].
I have an incentive for all this. Both my parents were dead before 60.
I'm now 62 and have siblings 7/10 years older.
When I'm in full exercise/healthy mode this is my regime.
10 hours exercise a week - split across walking/cycling/YAYOG [bodyweight exercises].
They recommend you combine cardio + muscle building exercise.
I broke down the YAYOG to 4*15 min sessions a week.
I try to eat as healthily as possible - including at least 2 days vegetarian.
Muesli for breakfast every day - with full fat milk. A mix of homemade + bought with extra nuts.
Lunch: homemade salad Mon/Wed/Fri with bread+egg + homemade vinaigrette. Homemade soup Sun/Tue/Thu.
Vegetarian Indian Mon/Thu. Whatever the boss cooks the other days.
I bake my own bread - seeded wholemeal [Panasonic bread maker].
I take a number of health supplements a day - this includes low dose aspirin [bowel cancer] + vitamin D [osteoporosis].
I have an incentive for all this. Both my parents were dead before 60.
I'm now 62 and have siblings 7/10 years older.
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