Step Count Science: Why 7,000 Is the New 10,000 | Melody Ding

A new study is challenging one of the most pervasive messages in health and fitness: the belief that 10,000 daily steps are needed to prolong life and prevent disease. 

Led by Professor Melody Ding at the University of Sydney and published in The Lancet, the study is the largest of its kind, analyzing data from more than 30 studies worldwide. Its findings suggest that significant health benefits may be achieved with as few as 7,000 steps a day—an attainable target for many who find 10,000 steps daunting. 

In this interview, Professor Ding discusses the scientific basis for rethinking our daily activity goals, how the research caught global attention, and what it means for public health recommendations moving forward. Peter Bowes speaks to Professor Ding to unpack what this shift in guidance could mean for millions tracking their steps around the world.

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Transcript

Melody Ding: 0:27

10,000 is a really nice round number that people will never forget, and it has motivated people to take more steps. But as scientists, it's about time for us to move on from this really nice kind of campaign target to a more evidence based target.

Peter Bowes: 0:49

How many steps do we need to take every day to lower the risk of an early death? A recent study suggested the arbitrary 10,000 that many of us aim for could be overly ambitious, when 7000 could be more realistic. Hello, and a very warm welcome to the Live Long podcast I'm Peter Bowes. This is where we explore the science and stories behind human longevity. Now, you might have seen news coverage of this story over the past couple of weeks. A study published in The Lancet, which attracted a huge amount of attention. Thanks to wearables many of us are acutely aware of how many steps we take in a day. But what should we read into this research? Professor Melody Ding led the study at the University of Sydney's School of Public Health. It is the largest and most comprehensive review to date of the impact different daily step counts can have on our chances of dying, perhaps too early, from diseases such as cancer, type two diabetes and dementia. Professor Ding, thanks for joining us.

Melody Ding: 1:56

Thanks for having me.

Peter Bowes: 1:57

Now, I mentioned just now the amount of coverage that this story, that the story based on your research has had in the last couple of weeks, just about every major newspaper around the world, including television, social media as well. Did that response surprise you?

Melody Ding: 2:14

To be honest, it's really overwhelming and it's like it's quite surprising to me. I think this level of interest probably reflects, I guess, the really deeply grounded belief that we need 10,000. And then now we have data challenging that, especially in many ways, a positive way. I think that's why people are so interested in this discovery. And what we found was that, you know, by combining data from more than 30 studies across the globe, was that it seems like the benefits of steps tend to level off around 7000. And of course, you know, if you you take a lot more beyond 7000, they're still incremental, you know, very small additional benefits for some of the outcomes. But for most of the outcomes, it seems to have reached the tipping point.

Peter Bowes: 3:07

So let's just backtrack for a moment. I mentioned that this is the largest study of its kind, really bringing in data from lots of other studies over recent years. What was the main impetus for you to launch this research? What prompted you to do it?

Melody Ding: 3:24

Yeah, that's an excellent question. And I actually did this research as part of my leadership in the updating the Australian Physical Activity guidelines. So I've been working with the Australian government and several very high achieving peer scientists updating the the most recent evidence for physical activity so that we can guide our people in terms of the right amount type of physical activity to perform for health benefits. And for many, many years, our physical activity recommendations for the US, for Australia, for the World Health Organization. So globally it has been focusing on the minutes of activities. You know, we currently have this recommendations of 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity. And I think the minutes can be a bit hard for people to comprehend and attract. But steps, on the other hand, is so widely available these days through devices, whether it's a phone app or a wearable. So I really wanted to see if there's any supplementary metrics we can use for guiding people's physical activity behavior. In fact, in 2018, when American guidelines were being updated, the current version, the scientists in the US have looked into this topic before. But you know, after 2018, the evidence was perceived to be a bit thin. But the evidence has really grown in the last couple of years. So, you know, seven years later, I was really interested in updating this again and see if we now have a bit more evidence and evidence based target for step counts.

Peter Bowes: 5:12

And 10,000 in terms of count of steps, is that arbitrary number that many people have been working to for many decades now? That really is an arbitrary is the right description, isn't it? I think it comes from a Japanese marketing campaign?

Melody Ding: 5:28

Yeah, I love the word that you use arbitrary. We use use unofficial target because it's not based on evidence. Like what you mentioned. There was two events that were you know, that's what we consider as what prompted 10,000 steps. So one was a pedometer brand back in the 1960s, that was named as 10,000 steps in Japanese. So pedometer is a, you know, device that was very popular back in the days, especially I think it started in Japan. You wear it on your hip and it counts your steps, like very kind of rudimentary, version of what we use as step count devices these days. And also around similar times. There was the, the Tokyo Olympics and there were some physical activity promotion campaigns around Japan. I think that was centered around 10,000 steps and it was taken out of there. It became incredibly popular around the world, as you can tell. It's deeply rooted in everyone's mind. But you know what I think? Even though it's you know, arbitrary as. As what you said, it's still a positive thing because, you know, 10,000. Is a really nice round number that people will never forget. And it has motivated people to take more steps. But I guess I think for us as scientists, it's about time for us to move on from this really nice kind of campaign target to a more evidence based target. And, you know, my thinking is when I saw the number that we had after extensive data analysis was that, you know, maybe by lowering the bar a little bit that can encourage more people to be active, because 10,000 steps really requires a little bit of effort. And for people who cannot reach that number, I just don't want them to feel like that. You know, I can't reach the number anyway. Might as well give up.

Peter Bowes: 7:15

So give me some idea of the studies that you looked at. It was over the period of about a decade, I believe, 57 different studies. Obviously some were large, some were smaller. But what sort of data were you analyzing?

Melody Ding: 7:30

Yeah. So I can give you an example. So one of the large data sets that is really popular around the world, and it's been used a lot in the last decade for analyzing these kind of research questions is the UK Biobank. So that's a UK based large data collection. So they tracked half a million people starting from around 2006 to 2009 and about 2010/11ish. They had a subsample of this large sample wearing an accelerometer device. So that's about 100,000 people that had an accelerometer measure. And accelerometer measure is something that they had the participants wear on their wrist, and it captured movement. And from that data, step counts could be derived. And then because these participants continue to be followed up and you link the data of these participants to, you know, health care access data, disease diagnosed data, cancer registry and mortality record. And then you can start to make some inferences for the association between the step counts data and their health performance many years down the track.

Peter Bowes: 8:49

And so what you did was you looked at potential health outcomes incrementally per number of steps. So starting from I believe about 2000. 2000. 3000, 4000. And it was when you got to 7000. Am I right in saying that that's when you noticed a significant impact that was kind of on a par with people who might be striving to do 10,000.

Melody Ding: 9:13

Precisely for most of the outcomes. That's something that I need to emphasize. We really see quite a significant leveling off. There are few outcomes like cancer incidence and type two diabetes. The relationships are more linear, so we start to see the risk continue to decrease beyond 7000 steps. But if you compare 7000 and 10,000 still the difference was quite small. So that's why we chose 7000 as a good target, because for most of the outcomes, you are almost comparable with 10,000 and moving from 7000 to 10,000. That's, you know, additional effort and time that could become barriers for some people. So, you know, kind of balancing the science and the practicality that we recommended 7000.

Peter Bowes: 10:02

I think what's interesting about this is that you're looking at a range of potential killer diseases, those typical killer diseases that affect people as they get older from dementia, type two diabetes and cancer, significantly different conditions. Yet you essentially had the same result in terms of the level of risk dropping according to the number of steps.

Melody Ding: 10:25

Yeah, so we were not surprised. But we're still very pleased to see these consistent associations across the studies. But you know, for some outcomes the relationship is stronger and for other outcomes is weaker. For example, for all cause mortality. That's probably the most relevant outcomes for longevity, which is to the interest of your listeners. So that's death from any causes. So when we compare 7000 steps to 2000 steps, which is what we use as the reference point, we're seeing almost halving the risk. So we're looking at a 47% reduction in risk. Compare the two. And you know, when we're looking at another outcomes, for example cancer incidence, it was a much smaller the much weaker relationship, it was only 6000 steps. And it didn't reach the statistical significance. But, you know, for cancer outcomes, we have a small number of studies. So there's a lot of uncertainty and these kind of outcomes. We really hope to have more data in the future to continue to investigate. But, you know, despite of an overall trend for a protective relationship, the effect sizes do differ across the outcomes.

Peter Bowes: 11:41

And I think a lot of people might be wondering, what is it about walking? What is it about taking steps that is so across the board beneficial towards our health?

Melody Ding: 11:52

Yeah. Good question. So first I do want to clarify that step counts do not equal walking because you know we could be playing tennis. We could be going for a run and all that will be counted towards steps. We know that there is the step like movement that one participated in, but we didn't know whether that person was actually walking. I've always been wearing devices and I do a lot of other sports. Tennis for example. I do HIT and my step counts do go up as a result of the other activities as well. So it doesn't have to be, you know, purposefully walking. So that's one thing. And the other thing is that I think it's important to conceptualize these step counts as an alternative metrics for physical activity. So we know that physical activity is beneficial. And there's no question about that. There's really solid evidence for decades of evidence building. So step counts is just another way of measuring physical activity. And as I mentioned earlier, that was exactly where this research came about because we knew how many minutes we needed, but we don't know how many steps we need. So I think we need to conceptualize step counts within the context of physical activity. So for some people, they might not be into walking. They might be interested in, you know, swimming and other type of activities. And I don't want them to stop what they're doing because they're doing physical activity, which is good for their health and for others walking is really the most accessible, cheapest and easiest way to be active. And walking itself does offer a great range of benefits as well, so that could just be another pathway for people to be active.

Peter Bowes: 13:38

And the great beauty of this relatively new idea of 7000 steps being perhaps the number that most average people should aim for. I guess the beauty of that is that for many people, 10,000 is still a little bit daunting. It's still a little bit too far. And just to know that the goal could be slightly less, but you're still achieving significant improvements in your health in the long term. That is potentially very useful for people.

Melody Ding: 14:07

Precisely. And also, the other thing to emphasize is that the 7000 steps do not have to be taken in one goal. It doesn't have to be continuous, so it can be spread out throughout the day. So, you know, No walking to the post office. Walking your dog. Taking stairs instead of the elevators. And you know, all these little incidental moments of activities can add up. And I think that's another great benefit of counting steps, because with the minutes, it's a lot harder to conceptualize in that way. But with steps, you know, you could swap your sit down meeting with a friend or colleagues. With walking meetings, you can just do a few things here and few things there. And at the end of the day, it can quite easily add to 7000 steps. But if we aim for 10,000 steps, we have to be a lot more purposeful in terms of like really carving out the time to be active, which is a great thing as well. And I think I want to emphasize again, for those who are already doing 10,000 steps, don't hold back, continue doing, you know what you're doing. You're doing great. And for some outcomes, there are still, you know, a little bit additional benefits.

Peter Bowes: 15:15

I was just about to ask, in fact, for those people who do still strive for 10,000, maybe 12, 15, even 20,000 steps a day for those high achievers. I guess it's worth asking does more movement always equate to better health, or do the returns diminish beyond a certain point?

Melody Ding: 15:34

That's an excellent question, and that's a question I often wonder about myself, because I am one of those high achievers when it comes to physical activity. I'm definitely not stopping myself at 7000 steps. So it's, you know, probably reassuring for some of the listeners to know, but there's currently no evidence of a very high level of physical activities being harmful. So that's from, you know, primarily based on evidence of chronic disease and all cause mortality again. But, you know, like I personally have not looked into specific data related to injuries and, you know, musculoskeletal issues. I think that it is important that when we are very active, we're doing mindfully and we do it safely and do it sustainably. So there is definitely diminishing return on investment. There's no doubt about that. And beyond 7000 is what we see as diminishing return on investment. But people might be inspired to do physical activity beyond the reason of health and longevity. You know, for me personally, I know having high levels of physical activity makes me happy. It makes me, you know, just feel energetic throughout the day and make me sleep good. Sleep well. So, you know, for me, I still do, you know, quite a lot beyond what is recommended, just because I enjoy doing that. So that could be very personal. So so I think the listeners can decide, you know, there's definitely, you know, it's not going to be doing your harm. So you know, you choose what you need to do.

Peter Bowes: 18:05

This is the Live Long podcast. Our guest is professor Melody Ding, a researcher at the University of Sydney's School of Public Health. We're talking about her most recent study, which concluded that 7000 daily steps may be a better goal than 10,000. For those of us aiming to improve our overall health and well-being. And of course, for those people who take their physical activity outdoors. Whether it's 7000 steps or 17,000 steps, the fact that you're outdoors and preferably in nature, that in itself can have a beneficial impact on your health. It's not just the physical steps, it's being outside. It's the fresh air. It's the sunlight. It's many of the factors that go into health and well-being.

Melody Ding: 18:50

Precisely. And they also offer us, you know, that interactions with nature also often offers us opportunity to be in contact with, you know, a healthy microbiome and allow us moments of mindfulness to notice what's going on in the environment. So I, I just cannot, you know, say more how much I enjoy being outdoors myself. I think there's one more thing I just want to emphasize because we are talking about whether doing more would be potentially harmful. And I think there's there's one thing that I do want to mention that it's important to consider healthy physical activity, healthy, active lifestyle to be a bit like, you know, a balanced diet in terms of we want different macronutrients and micronutrients, and physical activity is the same. You know, we have multiple components of activities. So stepping activities tend to capture aerobic physical activities. But there's also muscle strengthening activities. There's mobility activities you know that often includes balance training flexibilities and those things. So we want a little bit of both throughout our life, especially as we age when time is constrained. Let's say you only have an hour a day to be devoted to physical activity, and then you are aiming to do a lot of aerobic activity, you know, trying to aim for 12,000 steps or something. I guess the unintended consequence could be that you have less time to to be devoted to other type of activities. So in that context, it could be harmful. Because I think one thing that I think about this study finding is that, hey, now you can potentially save that time for the additional 3000 steps between 7000 and 10,000. And you can use that time to do, you know, muscle strengthening activity or balance training, which is incredibly important not only for health but also for physical function.

Peter Bowes: 20:44

Well, it's like the food that we eat, isn't it? It's a balanced diet and also a diet that comes in moderation. And I think you can apply the same terms to exercise as you just have, that you exercise in moderation, and you balance the types of exercise between, as you say, strength training and more aerobic training, which is essentially walking or running. I think you've got to be aware of that balance to get the optimal results.

Melody Ding: 21:11

Precisely.

Peter Bowes: 21:12

Let me ask you future studies. Having done this research, what would you like to study in future related to this? What kind of data maybe you haven't managed to gather so far would help to better understand the impact of of steps.

Melody Ding: 21:29

Excellent questions. There are a couple of things. So number one, I think that most of the data so far come from high income countries. And I think for us to really understand within a global context, we really hope to have more data from low and middle income countries as well, ideally from diverse populations. Number two, as I mentioned earlier, for some of the outcomes, there's still a lot of uncertainty. So we try to say that the findings for some of the outcomes are still descriptive at this stage because, you know, based on 2 or 3 studies is not sufficient. So I think more emphasis needs to be paid to some of the outcomes, such as cancer incidence. And number three we also looked into stepping rates, which is you know, how fast you you step. And the findings was counterintuitively inconclusive. Because we know for physical activity in general, the vigorous intensity activity could potentially offer some additional benefits from it compared with vigorous intensity activity. And it's more efficient as well for you to reach your energy expenditure target, because there's so many ways of measuring that rates or cadence. As we say, we're still not very good at conceptualizing that and measuring that scientifically. We're limited by the number of primary studies that are available. So I think leaving this paper behind, I need to go back and do more primary studies myself as well. For example, we currently don't have good evidence in terms of whether the step count targets should be different for different age groups. There are some indications that for older adults, the target might be even lower, but for most of the outcomes there just not enough data available. So I think we need to get on with that. And also some of the outcomes, as I mentioned earlier, such as cancer, such as, you know, dementia, which is the more studies overall. So I think we still have a lot of, you know, evidence building work to do.

Peter Bowes: 23:33

Professor Melody Ding. Wish you all the best with future research. This has been a fascinating conversation. Thank you very much indeed.

Melody Ding: 23:41

Thank you so much for your invitation and keep stepping.

Peter Bowes: 23:44

The Live Long podcast is a Healthspan Media production. I'm Peter Bowes. You can contact me through our website, LiveLongpodcast.com where you'll also find the show notes for this episode.

DISCLAIMER: 23:55

This podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. We do not offer medical advice. If you have health concerns of any kind or you are considering adopting a new diet or exercise regime, you should first consult your doctor.