![]() Last week I posted about an article which showed how being active for just 22 minutes a day can off-set the increased risk of sitting for most of the day. We’ve known for a long time that any activity is beneficial for our health. When it comes to specific types of activity, though, we often talk about walking. It’s cheap, easy and something almost everyone can do but, just how much of an impact walking has, and at what level that impact is achieved has been spotty. For example, we’ve all heard of the benefits of taking 10,000 steps a day. But, is that based in any science? The 10,000 step a day goal was actually part of an advertising campaign by a shoe company in Japan. They wanted to sell more shoes! It made sense that the more steps one took the healthier they were, so, why not do it in their shoes? An article recently published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology published on August 9, 2023 attempted to “make science” out of what we previously thought “made sense”. Tomorrow I’ll post a quick summary of the article which tries to answer the question of just how many steps has been shown to help with decreasing the risk of dying. But, in the mean time, how about we talk about “baby steps”, or more specifically in this case, stair steps. On September 15, 2023 researchers in England published their findings in the medical journal Circulation. In this study researchers followed almost a half a million adults for close to 13 years and found that those who walked at least 5 flights of stairs a day decreased their risk of dying by 20%. Interestingly, in this study, there didn’t seem to be much additional benefit for those who did more. Another interesting finding was that those who used the stairs regularly but stopped, increased their risk of dying by more than those who never took the stairs in the first place. I suspect the reason for that was that those that stopped taking the stairs had a reason, like a deterioration in health due to age, moving to a nursing home, arthritis, or a broken hip, for example. Statin drugs like Lipitor and Crestor generally reduce the risk of dying in people with high cholesterol by about 30%. So, think about that for comparison— you can decrease your risk of dying by walking a flight of stairs 5 times a day almost as much as taking a medication, all without the cost or potential side effects of medication. So, rather than avoiding the stairs why not look for reasons to take them instead. Instead of stacking things at the bottom of your stairs (until they accumulate to become worthy to gather all in-hand and take them upstairs) try taking multiple trips of smaller handfuls. Another strategy is to take the stairs instead of the elevator at work. Look for reasons to be a little more active and look for reasons to, as we like to say, do-what-moves-you.
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