Step It Out!

By the looks of it, “Stay Home and Stay Safe” will extend through the beginning of May and perhaps longer. As we adapt to our new normal, here is a little incentive to make exercise a regular part of your life from now on.

Researchers analyzed data from the 2003–2005 National Health and Nutrition Education Survey (NHANES). During that version of this recurring study, they collected seven-day accelerometer data from over 4,850 adults 40 years and older representative of the population of the U.S. They tracked the group of subjects through 2015 to look at all-cause mortality and steps per day.

If you look at the graph, you can see that deaths per 1,000 decreased as the number of steps per day increased. The mortality rate was half the amount at 8,000 steps per day than at 4,000 steps per day. While it continued to decrease slightly, the optimal amount of steps seemed to be between 8,000 and 10,000 steps per day. One surprising outcome was that intensity didn’t seem to matter; just volume.

All-cause means just that: all causes. That’s a real motivating factor to work on stepping it out every day. But it raised a question: could steps per day reduce the risk of getting upper respiratory infections? I won’t make you wait until Saturday. The answer is that no research has answered that question yet. But there was a lot more to this study, and I’ll cover that on Saturday.

Reminder: this week you can save 19% on two items at drchet.com. Use the coupon code virus.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: JAMA. 2020;323(12):1151-1160. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.1382.