Essential
- Walking more, even below 10,000 steps a day, reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease in people with hypertension.
- Each 1,000 -step level decreases this risk by 17 %, especially if walking is fast.
- Researchers recommend that it integrate walking as a standard care.
Each more step account for the health of your heart, especially if you suffer from hypertension. This is the conclusion of a vast study that has just been published in theEuropean Journal of Preventive Cardiology. The results are clear: walking more, even below the classic threshold of 10,000 steps per day – increasingly questioned – and walking faster significantly reduces the risk of major cardiovascular disease.
The measurable benefits of walking
To achieve this observation, researchers from the University of Sydney, Australia, analyzed data of more than 36,000 people with high blood pressure. Verdict: Each additional 1,000 daily tranche is associated with a 17 % drop in the risk of major cardiovascular event (infarction, stroke, heart failure), up to 10,000 steps. Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis, who supervised the work, sums up in a press release: “If you suffer from hypertension, the more you walk, the more intensely you walk, the more you reduce your risk of serious cardiovascular events.”
The profits are concrete: -22 % risk of heart failure, -9 % risk of infarction and -24 % risk of stroke by 1,000 steps. By intensifying walking (80 steps/minute over 30 minutes), the overall risk drops by 30 %. There is also no evidence of negative effect for those walking faster (up to 130 steps/minute).
Walking as a standard care measurement
This study offers a message of hope to the 1.28 billion people affected by hypertension worldwide: no need to systematically reach the 10,000 daily steps to benefit from it. “Any level of physical activity is useful, even below the usual recommendations, Insiste Le Pr Stamatakis. Clinicians should promote walking as a standard care, and adapt the advice to the needs of each patient. “
Recently, Harvard researchers have identified a protective effect up to 7,500 steps, beyond which the profits seem to cap. A meta-analysis of 2022 confirms for its part that a range between 6,000 and 8,000 steps is already enough to improve cardiovascular and metabolic health in those over 60.
