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Saturday, 26th July 2025

7,000 steps – or more?

You will have seen the headlines in Thursday’s news outlets:

“Walking 7000 steps a day seems to be enough to keep us healthy” (New scientist)

“Just 7,000 steps a day cuts health risks, study says” (BBC)

“How walking 7000 steps a day protects against diseases” (Daily Telegraph)

An AI summary states: “Recent studies suggest that the popular 10,000 steps a day target for optimal health may not be necessary, with 7,000 steps showing significant reduction for various health outcomes. One study even found benefits from walking as few as 2,337 steps a day.”

So does this mean that we should all cut back to a new target? NO, definitely NO!

The history of 10,000 steps

The recommendation to walk 10,000 steps a day originated in Japan during the 1960s as part of a marketing campaign for a pedometer called “manpo-kei” which translates as “10,000 steps meter”. This idea was promoted in the lead-up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The number 10,000 was chosen because it sounded catchy and challenging, and the Japanese character for 10,000, 万, is said to resemble a person walking. While the goal is widely adopted, it’s important to note that it was not initially based on scientific evidence but rather on marketing and a desire to promote physical activity.

Published in The Lancet Public Health “Daily steps and health outcomes in adults: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis” has no less that 20 authors. It looks at the evidence from 57 studies to define the relationship between daily step count and a number of outcomes and diseases. These include all cause mortality, cardiovascular disease and mortality, cancer incidence and mortality, type 2 diabetes, dementia, depression and falls. Step counts measured went from zero to 12,000.

The study found that compared with 2000 steps per day, 7000 steps per day was associated with a 47% lower risk of all-cause mortality, a 25% lower risk of cardiovascular disease incidence, a 47% lower risk of cardiovascular disease mortality, a non-significant 6% lower risk of cancer incidence, a 37% lower risk of cancer mortality, a 14% lower risk of type 2 diabetes, a 38% lower risk of dementia, a 22% lower risk of depressive symptoms  and a 28% lower risk of falls.

However, in all cases the benefits for completing 12,000 steps were substantially greater for all these outcomes except dementia and falls. The benefits from higher step counts were particularly great for all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality and cancer mortality.  There were no figures for those exceeding the 12,000 steps but the response curves suggested further benefit for all the outcomes except dementia and falls.

The take-home message

When it comes to exercise, more is better – usually much better! The study does acknowledge this but suggests that  7,000 steps might be a more realistic and achievable goal for inactive people.  Another example of “the perfect being the enemy of the good” (Voltaire).

So don’t be lulled into thinking that 7,000 steps a day should be the pinnacle of your exercise ambitions. Certainly it is much better than doing nothing, but there is much more to be gained by doing more, particularly by doing much more!

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One response to “7,000 steps – or more?”

  1. Fin says:
    26th July 2025 at 1:19 pm

    Well said Hugh, otherwise we will soon be advised that climbing into bed at night and climbing out again in the morning will suffice.

    Reply

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