How many steps do older women need to live longer?
Association of Step Volume and Intensity With All-Cause Mortality in Older Women.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Scientists looked at how many steps older women take every day and whether that affects how long they live. They also checked if walking faster matters.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
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Evidence Score
Groups of people are followed over time to see who develops an outcome. Strong for identifying risk factors and associations, but cannot prove causation as firmly as RCTs.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Scientists looked at how many steps older women take every day and whether that affects how long they live. They also checked if walking faster matters.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 552 / 72
Evidence Score
Groups of people are followed over time to see who develops an outcome. Strong for identifying risk factors and associations, but cannot prove causation as firmly as RCTs.
Publication
Authors
Lee IM, Shiroma EJ, Kamada M, Bassett DR, Matthews CE, Buring JE
Related Content
Claims (6)
Older women who walk about 4,400 steps a day tend to live longer than those who walk only 2,700 steps. More walking is linked to lower risk of dying from any cause.
Older women who walk about 4,400 steps a day tend to live longer than those who walk only 2,700 steps, and walking more helps up to about 7,500 steps — after that, walking even more doesn’t seem to lower the risk of dying any further.
How fast you walk doesn't really matter for living longer - what matters is how many total steps you take each day.
Walking about 7,500 steps a day helps older women live longer, but walking more than that doesn’t seem to add any extra benefit.
For older women, walking faster or with more intensity doesn't seem to lower the risk of death more than just hitting a total number of steps per day.