Walking at a faster pace may be associated with lower mortality risk, even among adults taking fewer than 5,000 steps a day.
People walking more slowly but accumulating 5,000 to 7,500 daily steps also showed lower mortality risk.
The study found that 7,500 to 10,000 daily steps were associated with the lowest overall risk of death from any cause.
Getting more steps in each day is a common fitness goal, but could the speed of those steps matter, too?
A new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine explored how walking pace and daily step counts work together in relation to the risk of premature death.
The researchers wanted to understand whether people could potentially support their long-term health through different combinations of walking more and walking faster. That could be especially useful for adults who find it difficult to reach traditional step-count goals or maintain a brisk pace.
How researchers studied walking habits and mortality
Researchers analyzed data from the U.K. Biobank, a large research project involving adults in the United Kingdom. Participants wore wrist-based activity trackers for seven days between 2013 and 2015, allowing researchers to measure their daily steps and walking intensity.
The team focused on a measure called peak 30-minute cadence. In simple terms, this represents a person's average steps per minute during their 30 most active minutes of stepping throughout the day. Those minutes did not have to happen consecutively.
Researchers divided participants into four groups based on daily step counts: fewer than 5,000, 5,000 to 7,500, 7,500 to 10,000, and more than 10,000 steps.
They then tracked deaths through November 2022, examining both deaths from any cause and deaths related to cardiovascular disease.
The analysis included 64,743 participants for all-cause mortality and 70,075 for cardiovascular mortality. Researchers adjusted for factors including age, sex, smoking, alcohol consumption, sleep, and certain health conditions.
What the findings could mean for everyday walkers
The results suggest that people may have more than one way to incorporate walking into their routines.
Among adults taking fewer than 5,000 steps daily, a faster walking pace was associated with lower mortality risk. Meanwhile, people taking 5,000 to 7,500 steps daily showed lower risk even at slower walking speeds.
The lowest overall risk of death from any cause was observed among people taking 7,500 to 10,000 steps daily. Within that group, the lowest risk was associated with a peak walking cadence of approximately 100 steps per minute.
Across step-count groups, maintaining a pace of around 90 to 100 steps per minute was also associated with lower all-cause mortality risk.
However, the findings show an association, not proof that walking faster or reaching a particular step count directly prevents death. The researchers noted that unmeasured factors and underlying health conditions could still influence the results.
For consumers, the takeaway is that walking goals do not necessarily have to look the same for everyone. Both daily movement and walking pace may matter, offering different ways to build more activity into everyday life.