A Brief Summary of the Benefits of Walking

Jason Gritti Internist Sacramento, CA

I am from Minneapolis, MN, where I did my undergrad training Univeristy of Minnesota and my master's programs at St Scholastica. My M.D. medical training was with St George's University in England, Grenada, and then with SUNY Downstate University in Brooklyn, NY. This is where I did my medical residency training. I chose... more

Reported Benefits:

Prevent or manage various conditions, including heart disease, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes
Strengthen your bones, joints, and muscles – helps reduce or prevent arthritis
- Several studies have found that walking reduces arthritis-related pain, and that walking five to six miles a week can even prevent arthritis from forming in the first place
Improves circulation – lower blood pressure and less heart disease
Weight challenges –
- Harvard researchers looked at obesity-promoting genes in over 12,000 people to determine how much these genes contribute to body weight. They then discovered that participants who walked briskly for about an hour a day, the effects of those genes were cut in half.
Improve your mood
Boost Immune system – some evidence of reduction in risk of cancer
- An American Cancer Society study that zeroed in on walking found that women who walked seven or more hours a week had a 14% lower risk of breast cancer than those who walked three hours or fewer per week.
- A study of over 1,000 men and women found that those who walked at least 20 minutes a day, at least 5 days a week, had 43% fewer sick days than those who exercised once a week or less. Improve your balance and coordination
Can help improve breathing
Slows mental decline or memory loss
- Walking slows mental decline. A study of 6,000 women, ages 65 and older, performed by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that age-related memory decline was lower in those who walked more. The women walking 2.5 miles per day had a 17-percent decline in memory, as opposed to a 25-percent decline in women who walked less than a half-mile per week.
- Walking lowers Alzheimer’s risk. A study from the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville found that men between the ages of 71 and 93 who walked more than a quarter of a mile per day had half the incidence of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, compared to those who walked less.

The Department of Health and Human Services recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate and vigorous aerobic activity. The guidelines suggest that you spread out this exercise during the course of a week.

Want to live longer? Walk. Research has shown that you can add up to seven years to your life by exercising daily, regardless of what you weigh. Even better, those extra years will be good ones as folks who walk are happier.

For example, obese participants who did moderate exercise for 150 minutes a week lived an average of 2.7 to 3.4 years longer, depending on how obese they were, than those who were obese and did not exercise.
Those who were overweight (but not obese) and did 150 minutes of moderate exercise weekly lived 3.9 years longer those who were overweight and did not exercise.
Normal-weight people who exercised for 150 minutes or more weekly lived about 4.7 years longer than normal-weight people who did not do regular moderate exercise.
Normal-weight individuals who exercised at a moderate level for at least 150 minutes weekly lived about 7.2 years longer, on average, compared with people who were inactive and obese.
The sparse epidemiologic data available suggest a 20% to 30% decreased mortality risk for subjects expending approximately 1000 kcal/wk—the equivalent of minimal adherence to the recommendations.

Starting a walking program takes initiative. Sticking with it takes commitment. To stay motivated:

Do I need to do 10,000 steps per day? The average American walks 3,000 to 4,000 steps a day, or roughly 1.5 to 2 miles. It's a good idea to find out how many steps a day you walk now (trackers), as your own baseline. Then you can work up toward the goal of 7,000 to 10,000 steps by aiming to add 1,000 extra steps a day every two weeks.
- I-Min Lee, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard University T. H. Chan School of Public Health and the lead author of a new study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, began looking into the step rule because she was curious about where it came from. “It turns out the original basis for this 10,000-step guideline was really a marketing strategy,” she explains. “In 1965, a Japanese company was selling pedometers, and they gave it a name that, in Japanese, means ‘the 10,000-step meter.’”
- Dr. Lee put it to the test by observing the step totals and mortality rates of more than 16,000 elderly American women. The study’s results paint a more nuanced picture of the value of physical activity. “The basic finding was that at 4,400 steps per day, these women had significantly lower mortality rates compared to the least active women,” Lee explains. If they did more, their mortality rates continued to drop, until they reached about 7,500 steps
Set yourself up for success. Start small, "I'll take a 5- or 10-minute walk during my lunch break." When your 5- or 10-minute walk becomes a habit, expand, "I'll walk for 20 minutes after work." Simply park further away, take stairs.
Make walking enjoyable. If you don't like walking alone, ask a friend or neighbor to join you, walk the dog. If you're energized by groups, join a health club or walking group. - listening to music while you walk.
Vary your routine. If you walk outdoors, plan several different routes for variety. If you're walking alone, tell someone which route you're taking. Walk in safe, well-lit locations.
Take missed days in stride. If you find yourself skipping your daily walks, don't give up. Remind yourself how good you feel when you include physical activity in your daily routine, and then get back on track.
Be safe: have the right gear, choose your path (if alone, tell a friend), carry a cell phone for emergencies, warm up, cool down, stretch, hydrate.

Some sources and additional information: