Posted on 10/10/2022 7:03:28 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
It may be time to pull out your step counters and start adding walking to your daily to-do lists. A recent study indicates taking 10,000 steps each day can help cut your risk of dementia by half.
Researchers monitored the steps of 78,430 adults between the ages of 40 and 79 over seven years. Results showed that 9,800 steps a day could reduce the risk of dementia by half, and there was no added reduction of risk if participants went over that number. Walking fewer steps daily, such as taking 3,800 steps, was found to reduce the risk by 25%.
"Walking is associated with better vascular profiles, which is probably the clearest pathway through which steps may benefit dementia," Borja del Pozo Cruz told Today. "(It's) likely that vascular dementia is the most preventable through physical activity."
Vascular dementia, the second most common type of dementia after Alzheimer's, affects memory, concentration, and thought processes, according to the U.K.-based Alzheimer's Society. Since aerobic exercises such as walking increase blood flow to the brain and can improve memory function, it's no surprise that 10,000 steps a day can potentially reduce the risk of dementia.
A previous study has shown that moderate exercise may reduce the risk of dementia by a third. However, this research proves that walking may be the best way to reduce your risk. Walking at least 10,000 steps a day has other benefits, too, such as reducing other conditions such as heart disease and high blood pressure, according to Healthline.
"This study represents an important contribution to step count–based recommendations for dementia prevention," the study's authors concluded. "Step count–based recommendations have the advantage of being easy to communicate, interpret and measure, and may be particularly relevant for people who accumulate their physical activity in an unstructured manner."
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
Depending on your stride, I think 10,000 is somewhere between 4-1/2 to 5 miles.
How many do I have to add to counter my nightly bourbon?
Like you, walking in heavy rain or snow makes it a lot harder. Congrats on your 20 years! We just have under two years daily walking under our belts. It’s a terrific new habit. We’ve plateaued on weight loss, but I’m sure we are much stronger than we were 2 years ago. We can easily keep up with our 30 something kids easy peasy. They used to think we had one foot in the grave (we didn’t), but now they realize we are doing pretty darn good.
I think I need an extra 2000 steps for every rum drink I have. Probably why I’ve plateaued for so long.
Bkmk
Bkmk
I prefer to walk a mile with my dogs then ride 5 or more miles on a mountain bike around town.
I ran for 32 years, about 22 miles per week. But the meniscus in my right knee finally turned to Swiss cheese last year, so I switched to biking.
I would hope that biking is just as beneficial.
I hope so, too. I think what they are trying to do is to motivate people to exercise in any form, but I could be wrong. I know for me, I figured, well, I can walk, so why not start there? So that’s where I started. It became a really nice transition between the work day and the evening. Once the walk is over, the work day is officially behind, and doesn’t get brought up until the next morning. My husband can be a workaholic sometimes, so this has REALLY helped him get past that. There’s never enough time in a day to get it all done. Never.
Bump
The way that headline is composed ….. extremely suspect.
Supposedly statins reduce the risk of a heart attack from 3% to 2%.
Well, statin side effects are a big reason many people can’t tolerate that drug.
But back to the objection to the article:
“So Doc, there is a 97% chance I won’t have a heart attack? But if i take this drug that makes me feel like an injured zombie there is a 50% decrease in my heart attack risk?”
I don’t like walking enough to spend my remaining years collecting 10,000 steps a day.
YMMV
I’m looking for a way to exercise without exerting myself.
So walk five miles a day or else
Yup
What a crock of BS.
While superficially encouraging, all this may be saying is that persons able to take 9,800 steps per day are not being inhibited by cognitive decline whereas for the other group, cognitive decline inhibits their ability to take so many steps.<p.
There are two completely different ways of reducing your chances of dementia: 1 delay or eliminate the onset, or 2 die of something else first.
Are you sure that 10,000 steps a day is #1?
I did a lot of skating, skiing, running, triathlons, etc.
I damaged my left knee in bicycle crash. Never damaged my right knee, but both of them were bone-on-bone when I had them replaced.
Thanks for the laugh !!
I’m doomed. 😏
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