2,000 Extra Steps a Day can Lower Heart Disease Risk by 8 Percent

By walking an extra 2,000 steps every day, people with glucose-tolerance problems can cut their risk of heart attack or stroke by 8 percent, according to a new study.

Impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) affects 344 million people around the world - 7.9 percent of the global population. By 2030, the number of people living with IGT is predicted to rise to 472 million.

"People with IGT have a greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease," said study leader Thomas Yates from the University of Leicester. "While several studies have suggested that physical activity is beneficially linked to health in those with IGT, this is the first study to specifically quantify the extent to which change in walking behavior can modify the risk of heart disease, stroke, and cardiovascular-related deaths."

For the study, Yates and his colleagues gathered more than 9,300 adults in 40 countries with IGT who had also been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease or were considered at risk for developing it.

The study participants were assigned a "lifestyle modification program" designed to reduce body weight and dietary fat intake while increasing physical activity to 150 minutes per week. The researchers measured the average number of steps each person took per day for one week before the lifestyle modification program began and for one week, and again for one week a year after the program began.

Yates and his colleagues found an inverse correlation between walking activity and risk of cardiovascular disease.

After six years, the researchers found that people who added 2,000 steps to their daily routine - about 20 minutes of moderate walking - reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease by 8 percent.

While regular exercise, even walking, is widely known to be beneficial to the health of people with IGT, this study has quantified exactly how much a little extra walking will do for the health of a person with IGT.

"Our results provide novel evidence that changing physical activity levels through simply increasing the number of steps taken can substantially reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, such as heart attack and stroke," Yates said. "Importantly, these benefits are seen regardless of bodyweight status or the starting level of activity. These novel findings provide the strongest evidence yet for the importance of physical activity in high risk populations and will inform diabetes and cardiovascular disease prevention programs worldwide."