Increasing an individual’s daily number of steps to 7,000 a day could cut their risk of cancer and diabetes by 34%.
This is according to Adrian Gore, founder of Discovery Vitality, who was speaking this morning at an event organised to launch the insurer’s research The Habit Index mapping the behaviours and habits of more than one million Vitality programme members across South Africa and the UK over a 10-year period.
Gore revealed for chronic conditions such as diabetes and critical illnesses like cancer, increasing an individual’s number of steps to 7,000 daily can cut these risks by 34%.
While 10,000 steps a day has traditionally been seen as the optimum healthy number of steps an individual should take a day, Gore explained Vitality’s research found that five to seven and a half thousand steps a day was an “efficient” level.
And he added that this level of steps contribution to good health was consistent across age groups.
In terms of getting toward reaching that number of steps, Gore revealed an additional 800 steps was the maximum point before a drop off rate occurred.
“The amount of steps of between five thousand and seven and a half thousand is not that much a day,” Gore maintained.
“The effect on mortality is dramatic. It doesn’t take long to create good behaviour, good strong habits. Seven to 15 weeks for the increase in activity. And the increments need to be small…
“Simply pick a target. If you want want to get to 5,000 steps a day, try and get to 5,000 and from 5,000 try and get to seven and a half. But those ranges are fine.”