I’d rather the title said above 9000 steps rather than below 10,000 steps, since the 10,000 step thing is long debunked as a marketing ploy.

I’m glad we have this kind of research being done, it just sounds fishy having a 40-year-old commercial slogan so prominent in the article

Experts found the lowest risk of early death was among people who took 9,000 to 10,500 steps a day.

So over 10,500 the risk increases?

TL:DR: build a habit now and start parking your car half a mile from work when you commute.

The article doesn’t link which study was used. I searched around and I’m pretty sure it’s this one:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/01/24/bjsports-2023-107221

Here’s the abstract:

Objectives This study aims to examine the associations of daily step count with all-cause mortality and incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) by sedentary time levels and to determine if the minimal and optimal number of daily steps is modified by high sedentary time.

Methods Using data from the UK Biobank, this was a prospective dose–response analysis of total daily steps across low (<10.5 hours/day) and high (≥10.5 hours/day) sedentary time (as defined by the inflection point of the adjusted absolute risk of sedentary time with the two outcomes). Mortality and incident CVD was ascertained through 31 October 2021.

Results Among 72 174 participants (age=61.1±7.8 years), 1633 deaths and 6190 CVD events occurred over 6.9 (±0.8) years of follow-up. Compared with the referent 2200 steps/day (5th percentile), the optimal dose (nadir of the curve) for all-cause mortality ranged between 9000 and 10 500 steps/day for high (HR (95% CI)=0.61 (0.51 to 0.73)) and low (0.69 (0.52 to 0.92)) sedentary time. For incident CVD, there was a subtle gradient of association by sedentary time level with the lowest risk observed at approximately 9700 steps/day for high (0.79 (0.72 to 0.86)) and low (0.71 (0.61 to 0.83)) sedentary time. The minimal dose (steps/day associated with 50% of the optimal dose) of daily steps was between 4000 and 4500 steps/day across sedentary time groups for all-cause mortality and incident CVD.

Conclusions Any amount of daily steps above the referent 2200 steps/day was associated with lower mortality and incident CVD risk, for low and high sedentary time. Accruing 9000–10 500 steps/day was associated with the lowest mortality risk independent of sedentary time. For a roughly equivalent number of steps/day, the risk of incident CVD was lower for low sedentary time compared with high sedentary time.

Edit: was wrong about the data. This looks like a good study (in my unqualified opinion).

Covariates Our selection of covariates was based on previous daily stepping and sedentary time literature (online supplemental figure 2) and included age, sex, ethnicity, education, smoking status, alcohol consumption, fruit and vegetable consumption (servings per day), parental history of CVD and cancer, medication use (cholesterol, insulin and hypertension) and accelerometer-measured sleep time (hours/day). In sensitivity analyses, we included clinical factors that may be potential mediators: waist circumference, glycated haemoglobin A1C, high-density and low-density lipoprotein, diastolic and systolic blood pressure, and triglycerides. Complete covariate definitions are provided in online supplemental table 2.

Also, the “2200 steps” figure works out to roughly a mile, which is some pretty serious exercise for a sedentary 61-year-old (IMO). No idea if this is impactful outside that age group either, but I read this as good news for the future.

https://calculator.academy/steps-to-miles-calculator/

Team 2199 unite!

I’ve seen several articles about this magical number of steps, and I think the general consensus was about 4000 steps per day is a good basic health maintenance number. The more steps the better, more benefit beyond that though. Unless you get too sore and can’t do any walking the next day, that would be too many.

This is so useless. You know what reduces your chances of early death? A healthy lifestyle. Who would of guessed that eating right and exercise would be good for you