Walk faster, live longer

If you want to add a few years to the length of your life, you can sprob to raise the speed of your gait. At least that’s what researchers advise. According to them, walking speed can affect the risk of death.

Experts recommend at least pol hours of physical activity a day. This is a relatively clear message, but knowing exactly what qualifies as physical activity is something of a gray area. Does walking to the photocopier count or not?

To find out where physical activity begins, researchers gathered responses from more than 50,000 peopleob, ktore participated in 11 population-based studies in England and Scotland between 1994 and 2008. The records were linked to mortality data. The researchers looked for a link between walking speed and ogolnymi indicators of deathow, deaths due to cancer and deaths due to diseaseob cardiovascular.

– Walking speed is associated with the risk of death, but its specific role-independent of the total physical activity a person undertakes-has so far been poorly studied – mowi Emmanuel Stamatakis of the University of Sydney.

A study conducted by Australian researchersoin wspohe study, which was carried out in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Limerick and the University of Ulster, was published on „British Journal of Sports Medicine”. They provided interesting data, whichore show that there is a significant rohe difference between a leisurely walk and a brisk walk.

Already the average walking pace is associated with 20 percent of the. Reducing the risk in the case of death due to ogolnych in poroin comparison with walking at a slow pace. Walking at a brisk pace reduces the risk of death by 24 percent. – results from the study. At the same time, the authors note that they took a speed of 5-6 kilometers as a fast walking paceow per hour.

– The fast pace is usually five to six kilometersow per hour, but it really depends on the level of fitness of the walker. An alternative indicator is chod at a rate thatore causes breathlessness – explains Stamatakis.

A similar result was found for the risk of death from cardiovascular causes – in cfown comparison with slow walking, the average walking pace meant a 24 percent lower mortality rate., while a fast pace – by 21 percent.

The study authors also noted that the protective effect of fast walking is more pronounced in older age groups. The average walking pace in an osob aged 60 years or older, resulted in a 46 percent reduction in the risk of death from cardiovascular causes. InoIn comparison with osob walking slowly, while walking fast reduced this risk by 53 percent.

– While gender and body mass index did not affect the results, walking at a moderate or brisk pace was associated with a significantly reduced risk of all-cause mortality in chorob cardiovascular and mortality ogolnej. However, we did not find any evidenceow that walking pace had a significant effect on cancer mortality – explains Stamatakis.

In light of the resultoIn the study, the compositeol scientistsow calls to emphasize walking pace in public health messages. According to the authoroin the publication, quickening your step can be easilyob prolong your life.