Take Steps To Counteract Risks Of Sitting

30 seconds

It’s no secret that habitually sitting for long periods of time can have adverse health consequences. Now, a large study from the University of Sydney has found that increasing daily step count can significantly reduce those risks. Analyzing data from over 72,000 people, researchers discovered that more steps per day — up to about 10,000 — were linked a 39 percent lower risk of death and a 21 percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease, regardless of how much time participants spent sedentary.

Even moderate activity helped: About half of the benefits were achieved with just 4,000 to 4,500 steps per day. While walking doesn’t fully cancel out the harms of prolonged sitting, it can meaningfully offset them.

The study used wearable devices to objectively track movement and followed participants for nearly seven years. Although they do not prove cause and effect, the findings suggest a clear takeaway: moving more — especially increasing daily steps — can potentially improve health and lower the risk of heart disease and early death, even for people with desk-heavy lifestyles.