Forget 10,000, New Global Research finds that 7,000 daily stages are the real ideal point to protect your heart, brain and long -term health.
Goodbye: Daily steps and health results in adults: a systematic review and a dose-response meta-analysis. Image credit: Tierneymj / Shutterstock
In a recent systematic journal and a meta-analysis published in Lancet’s public healthAn international team of researchers has reassessed the arbitrary objective of 10,000 daily stages which served as a “healthy” “unofficial” reference for decades.
The study gathered and reanalyzed the data of 57 independent studies to define the precise dose-answer relationship between the daily stages and a wide range of health results.
The results of the study revealed that daily walking can promote significant benefits for health (cardiovascular diseases, dementia, mortality, etc.) as low as 7,000 daily stages, contrasting the popular but scientifically unaccompanied recommendation of 10,000 daily stages.
While 10,000 stages demonstrate additional advantages of more than 7,000 stages for results such as mortality from all causes, dementia and depression, these represent relatively lower gains in relation to the 7,000 initial stages.
Adults aged 65 and over showed a continuous reduction in linear mortality beyond 7,000 stages, which suggests that higher targets can benefit older populations.
These results supported by evidence suggest that the execution of walking for optimal long -term health results can be much more feasible than we thought before.
The original story of 10,000 stages
Public health directives have long sought to normalize the recommendations of physical activity, traditionally recommending at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week for optimal long -term health results. In today’s era of intelligent portable devices (fitness bands, fitness rings and intelligent watches), the number of daily steps quickly becomes a more intuitive and more popular metric.
Consequently, public health agencies now recommend the objective of “10,000 stages”. Unfortunately, although this objective is well known and has existed for decades, its origins reside in a Japanese marketing campaign in the 1960s, rather than scientific evidence.
To approach this difference, recent high quality research uses measuring techniques based on devices (pedometers and accelerometers) to elucidate a simpler overview and based on evidence of the impacts of the different activity models on human health.
Previous systematic journals have validated the positive association between the number of steps higher and better health. However, they mainly evaluated cardiovascular results, with other markers of chronic diseases (for example, cancers, mental health) largely ignored. In addition, the dose-response curves, which directly corrèle the number of daily stages with specific reductions in the risk of illness, have not been established.
Cracking Health Health Code
This review and this meta-analysis aim to fill these gaps in the literature by synthesizing data from several high-quality prospective studies to quantify the relationship between daily counts and health results.
Study data (publications) were obtained from Pubmed and EBSCO CINAHL scientific standards using a personalized research strategy, focusing on recent publications evaluated by peers between January 2014 and February 2025.
The sequential title, abstract screening and full text gave 57 publications (35 unique cohorts) for a systematic review, of which 31 (24 cohorts) met the criteria of meta-analysis (Dose-response results).
All the studies included were prospective in methodology (participants are followed over time and the relevant data are recorded) and have examined the number of daily steps of healthy adults using specific portable devices. The measures recorded (in particular, the number of daily steps) were then statistically compared to their risk of current and future chronic disease.
The meta-analyzes used a dose-response model with random effects in a step, in which danger reports (HR) (HR) were used to create risk curves for eight key results: 1. Mortality all causes, 2. Cardiovascular diatial (CVD; Incidence and mortality), 3. Cancer and mortality), 4. (Cognitive results), depressed (mental health results), 7. Physical function and 8. Falls.
The precision of evidence was estimated using the directives for the classification of recommendations, evaluation, development and evaluation (grade).
The ideal point of 7,000 stages
The meta-analysis has shown a robust dose-answer relationship between the number of daily steps and the results for health. In particular, the form of the dose-response curve varied by a specific result-for all causes, the incidence of MCVs, dementia, falls and mortality by cancer, the association was non-linear, the most steep risk reductions occurring to a certain point before leveling. On the other hand, for the mortality of MCV, the incidence of cancer, T2D and depressive symptoms, the association was linear, which means that the risk continued to decrease regularly as the stages increased.
The most important conclusion of the study may have been the emergence of a scientifically validated and achievable daily adult target-7,000 stages. Compared to a basic line of 2,000 stages per day, 7,000 stages have been associated with a risk of mortality in all causes of more than 47% (HR 0.53; 95% CI 0.46–0.60), a risk of 47% CVD mortality (HR 0.53; 95% CI 0.37–0.77; HR 0.75; 0.67–0.85) 38% dementia (HR 0.62; 95% CI 0.53–0.73) and 22% risk of depressive symptoms (HR 0.78; 95% CI 0.73–0.83).
Although the incidence of cancer has not decreased significantly (reduction of 6%, HR 0.94; 95% CI 0.87–1.01; low -certainty evidence), mortality associated with cancer has shown a reduction of 37% (HR 0.63; 95% CI 0.55 to 0.72).
Falls have shown substantial improvements (–28%, HR = 0.72; 95% CI 0.65–0.81), although the certainty of evidence is very low. However, post-hoc analysis has confirmed additional advantages to 10,000 stages against 7,000: a mortality rate all causes of 10% causes, a risk of dementia at 12% lower and an incidence of 14% of depressive symptoms. The relationship between stages and health can vary depending on the measurement device used (for example, VS accelerometers pedometers).
Paradigm shift
This complete review provides the first scientifically validated optimal daily steps for healthy adults (~ 7,000 stages per day). He underlines how the realization and maintenance of this highly feasible target can considerably reduce the risk of chronic disease and promote healthy aging.
While 10,000 stages per day remain an excellent goal for more active people, this new research establishes a more realistic and scientifically founded target which can motivate a larger part of the population. Above all, adults over 65 can draw additional advantages from more than 7,000 stages, and the force of evidence varies according to the results.
Future guidelines should take into account the targets and age -specific shades to the extent of the devices.