Brisk 3,000 Steps Effective Even for Hypertension Patients
Risk of Myocardial Infarction, Heart Failure, and Stroke Reduced by 17%
A study has found that even if people with hypertension walk fewer than 10,000 steps a day, walking at a brisk pace can significantly reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease.
A study has shown that cardiovascular disease prevention effects can be expected even with fewer steps than walking 10,000 steps a day. The photo is not related to the specific content of the article. Pexels.
On August 11, a research team led by Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis at the University of Sydney in Australia published a paper in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology (EJPC), reporting that after analyzing more than 36,000 patients with hypertension, the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) decreased by up to 17% for every additional 1,000 steps walked daily above a baseline of 2,300 steps per day.
This study targeted 36,192 patients with hypertension who participated in a sub-study of the UK Biobank, a British biomedical database. These participants wore accelerometers on their wrists for seven days to measure both step count and walking speed. The average age of the participants was 64, and they were followed for about eight years. The research team collected a total of 283,001 person-years of data (one person-year is one person observed for one year), during which 1,935 cases of heart disease or stroke occurred.
The results showed that for every 1,000-step increase above the baseline of 2,300 steps per day, the risk of MACE decreased by 17.1%, the risk of heart failure by 22.4%, the risk of myocardial infarction by 9.3%, and the risk of stroke by 24.5%.
Similar results were found when analyzing 37,350 individuals without hypertension. For every additional 1,000 steps walked per day, there was a 20.2% reduction in the risk of MACE, a 23.2% reduction in heart failure, a 17.9% reduction in myocardial infarction, and a 24.6% reduction in stroke.
Hypertension is a disease affecting approximately 1.28 billion people worldwide. It increases the risk of heart disease by 49%, stroke by 62%, and heart failure by 77% to 89%. However, until now, it has not been clear how much physical activity patients with hypertension need to reduce their risk of MACE.
Professor Stamatakis, who led the study, stated, "This is one of the first studies to demonstrate a dose-response relationship between daily step count and major cardiovascular disease. The more and the more intensely people with hypertension walk, the lower their future risk of cardiovascular disease." He added, "Even if you do not reach 10,000 steps, any physical activity is beneficial for health."
The strengths of this study include its large sample size, accelerometer-based measurement of step count and walking speed, and the use of UK mortality and cause-of-death data. However, the study could not account for changes in physical activity after the initial measurement. Additionally, as an observational study, it does not establish causality.
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