Health Expert Says Walking Every Day Can Ward Off Chronic Diseases Like Diabetes And Obesity, Per New Study: "Walking Saves Lives"
Look around on the internet and there are all kinds of suggestions for getting healthy, losing weight, and staving off chronic disease. But it might be simpler than you think to adopt a healthy lifestyle. A new study suggests that simply walking 8,000 steps a day can help you ward off chronic illnesses.
There's a lot of conflicting information on social media when it comes to health and fitness. Some influencers swear by intermittent fasting, others are diehard weightlifters, and some encourage elimination diets. But things don't have to be that complicated. All it takes is a simple rewrite of the daily habits that you do for yourself. Mike Mutzel, a health expert with more than 224,000 followers on Instagram, shared news of a recent study that connected a certain step count with health and longevity.
Health Expert Says Walking Every Day Can Ward off Chronic Diseases Like Diabetes and Obesity, Per New Study
Nearly half of Americans are obese today and 70% are overweight. More than 10% of the American population has diabetes and 47% of American adults have high blood pressure. We may be one of the most developed nations in the world but we are certainly not the healthiest. Our country is in some serious need of a health makeover. Fortunately, it doesn't take much to improve your health.
Mutzel posted a study shared by the journal Nature Medicine. Research was conducted on more than 329,000 people and the study found "an inverse association between daily step count and the risk of developing these common conditions that many people suffer from, even diabetes and high blood pressure."
The participants who accumulated 8,000 steps a day were much more likely to ward off chronic diseases "such as obesity, diabetes, gastro-intestinal reflux, depression, even sleep apnea," Mutzel says. The results very clearly showed a higher step count is associated with lower disease risk.
"So how many times do you go to the doctor and they prescribe you to walk?" Mutzel continues. "Between 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day was found to be kind of a sweet spot in terms of its association with greatest reduction in the incidence of those diseases. So we need to make sure that exercise is being prescribed as medicine."
Mutzel calls this "good news" because "you don't need to go out and buy a supplement" or "some sort of tool" to get healthier. "We all have access to walking and as we've talked about here on Instagram is you don't need to walk consecutively," he suggests. "You can do three 15-minute walks after every time you eat to get to that 10,000 step mark again, that's been shown to be inversely and statistically significantly reduced with the prevalence of obesity, hypertension, gastrointestinal reflux disorder, depression, and also diabetes."
"So friends, exercise is medicine. Walking saves lives," he concludes.
It doesn't take much to get yourself outside and go for a walk, and if you have loved ones in your life who also need to improve their health, you can take them along with you. The great thing about increasing your daily step count is that you won't only improve your physical health, but your mental and emotional health too.