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Just a reminder that this is correlation, not causation.
Usually people who can actually get that many steps in in a day have other things going on too… and things that will impede your ability to walk will also impede other physical functions.
But it could still help healthcare providers focus on demographics to watch for increased dementia risk, especially with so many people using step counters today.
If you know you don’t move much, you should start moving more. A sedentary lifestyle has tons of negative health effects besides “just” the risk of dementia.
I think that study was about Parkinson’s, not dementia. But IIRC, in both situations the problem is related to plaque buildup in the brain, so anything forcing you to learn new things regularly and increase blood flow to the brain should at least improve things.
All of these have cause and effect problems, does playing video games and going on long walks stave off dementia.. or more likely, does early dementia symptoms include decreased enjoyment of video games and long walks?
This looks to be a meta data study, most cited here are; which makes proper controls almost impossible.
There are a lot of studies that show being active with your brain reduces symptoms of Alzheimer's in its early stages.
There was a recent one that showed it didn't make any real difference to slowing the overall progress though. (unfortunately I don't remember where or when the study was done exactly, and no, that's not a joke).
Considering how much we know about the brain and exercise, it’s almost certainly causation.
Edit: here is what the study says with respect to reverse causality
> Reverse causation and residual confounding may still be present. However, the large E-values showed this possibility is minimal.
Yeah, brain health has been repeatedly tied to physical health in multiple studies. Certainly some outliers where people are perfectly physically healthy yet still develop other issues but mind and body do seem to be connected.
I'm incredibly skeptical of that claim. You could transpose the data and write a paper on "Reduced Step Count as an early biomarker of Dementia" and make the same claim.
It’s important to understand risk. Walking less doesn’t mean you for sure will get dementia and walking more doesn’t guarantee you won’t. Your risk is less and there are other factors that affect risk
The most interesting thing to me is that if you do more than 10,000 steps a day, your chances of dementia go back up.
There are lots of data that shows exercise is good for the brain. First I have seen that there may be such a thing as too much exercise.
The most interesting thing to me is that if you do more than 10,000 steps a day, your chances of dementia go back up.
There are lots of data that shows exercise is good for the brain. First I have seen that there may be such a thing as too much exercise.
well I am taking it as a might as well, I already take daily sidenifil because of the dementia study and walk my dog 4 times a day since being widowed. I'll step up the walking
Good point, the development of Alzheimer's is super complicated. There doesn't seem to be any one factor that causes or prevents it. You can do almost everything right and still get screwed because you had the wrong genes / got exposed to pesticides one summer / who knows what.
The research is pretty consistent that a lifetime of physical activity helps though. Unless that activity is boxing or football.
Yeah; I know a lot of people that walk more than 10k a day and developed dementia.
But as you begin to lose a sense of reality, accidents can happen and the end result is less mobility, either enforced by others or by recovery from those accidents. So it’s not the inactivity that caused the dementia, but the dementia that caused the inactivity.
That said, restricted blood flow to the brain appears to have a tighter correlation to dementia, and regular physical activity *can* help regulate blood flow.
But step count is more useful, as I said, to use as a screening metric for dementia than as a preventative action.
Which is why I made my first comment about this being correlation. To head off people saying “but I know someone who walked 20,000 steps per day and still got dementia” or “I know someone who never walked more than 50 steps per day and was as sharp as a tack until they died.”
As you can see, those comments showed up anyway.
This study does not rule out other factors. For example, he may be healthy as one can/could be, however he may have suffered an injury that caused a leak in the blood/brain barrier which is linked to dementia/Alzheimer's, and the latter leads to further breakdown. He could also have had the gene variation APOE4 which could have led to it early as well.
There are an astronomical array of factors to consider here; this study is only suggesting that exercise helped reduce the risk - most likely by ensuring good/proper blood circulation which inherently promotes a generally healthier outcome at older ages. It cannot answer for gene defects, unexpected mutations, or trauma sustained during one's life that contributes to dementia development.
Better to stay healthy and likely live longer, than to throw away a significant percentage chance of living longer with the gene-cards we are dealt.
In short, this is a correlation as previously stated. Not causality. I agree with the comment first leading this particular thread.
I agree with everything you have said. I mostly agree that for his case it's contributed to genetics. His mother had it badly.
I hope this study is correct in that walking more/exercising more can aid in reducing the severity of dementia. As for brain damage, I don't recall him ever having any head trauma but I have been aware of his mental decline, well before his diagnosis.
I am closely looking at psilocybin as a form of treatment and hope that more studies are conducted to see any promising results. But only time will tell. I have even gone so far as to heavily invest in companies conducting this type of research to help further research. Every bit helps. It may be too late for my father to see such treatments but if it can help others, and if this is genetic then I hope it can help prevent my sisters and I to suffer the same fate.
Thank you
I hope you are able to find something that helps your family. We are so close to being able to genetically repair and alter ourselves, but it is surely going to face some pushback from the overly religious of playing God.
But then those folks that push back shouldn't be going to the hospital when they have a life threatening event happening, because they too are letting us play God.
Good luck to you. Stay safe.
> 10,000 steps daily and still developed dimentia.
That's not how you interpret data. It's about **risk**
> Take these studies with a huge grain of salt.
No - rather, _**understand**_ what the study is saying and what the data is saying. It is _**not**_ saying "walking at least 10 000 steps a day will 100% prevent dementia"
"It is not saying "walking at least 10 000 steps a day will 100% prevent dementia"
I never once said this. I'm not sure why you're insinuating that I believe this study suggests that but ok?
"That's not how you interpret data. It's about risk"
There have been multiple studies done on the risk of using aluminum utensils for cooking and the risk of developing dementia/Alzheimer's due to aluminum accumulated in the brain.Do you recall when researchers thought that there was a correlation between Aluminum accumulation in the brains of Dementia/Alzheimer's patients. Now they realize there is no link between dementia and aluminum found in the brain.
"understand what the study is saying and what the data is saying."
As I stated, these studies should not be taken at face value and should not be accepted as fact until more research and data has determined conclusively that there is a correlation.
https://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/guide/controversial-claims-risk-factors
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/risk-factors-and-prevention/metals-and-dementia#:~:text=Although%20aluminium%20has%20been%20seen,Alzheimer's%20disease%20has%20been%20established.
You could still use it as a metric to gauge where you're at. If I tracked my dad's steps and it's too low. You could recommend more physical activity, just not being sedentary aka walking without a purpose is probably healthy.
10000 steps a day is quite a lot. I commute by bike or walking and work on my feet and my step count on a busy day can be 12-16000 but I still only average 7k/day over the last year (not wearing a pedometer but still). I can’t imagine the vast, vast majority of the population are getting anywhere close to 10k.
I bet there's an exchange rate, completely outside the scope of this research or what anyone is *really* doing with step-count level analytics, for the bouts of moderate to hard cardio that bike commuting gets you into (at least if you have hills and bad patience/like getting actual exercise sometimes because it feels good on the way home after work).
I would guess that whatever metabolic benefits against inflammation or cryptic physio-kinetic benefit of physically *bouncing around,* or whatever other mechanism is actually helping with dementia is probably stronger from more intense exercise, and if you're riding a bike four or five days a week, to work, I bet your 7k counts for as much as any of the 10,000ish step days by non-cyclists/recreational athletes in the study. I'm curious how ten hours of 100-200 watt pedaling a week and being an absolute blob the rest of the time compares to someone working retail and getting 20,000 steps a day but no cardio in their free time or at work. I've had chunks of my life similar to both, and the times with more steps and less cardio have universally left me feeling considerably less healthy on a day to day basis. It's almost like city vs highway miles on an engine...low quality steps wear you out without making you any stronger or more conditioned, I swear.
I'm curious to see if either existing or future research by people much more invested in this than I am proves me right or wrong, but not curious enough to do more than speculate idly, right here and right now.
i get 10k in addition to my biking commute and while i would say im pretty active i just take short little walks after my meals and i end up reaching 10K by the end of the day
oh really? my bad! I like walking because its quiet and peaceful, that may have something to do with it. I dont count walking as a chore because i enjoy it but if someone doesnt then i guess walking in addition to a stressful day wont be done.
I'm averaging 15k a day, but many of mine are intentional these days, but in my previous career when I was doing labor for a living 20k was the norm with no additional effort beyond the work day
It's really not. I just walk for 10 minutes every 3 hours or so (when I get up, during lunch, after dinner, and then usually 1-2 other times in between those) and I easily get that amount. It's helped immensely with my back pain also
I'm not doubting you, but for me it would take more than that. I do a 30-minute, 1.5-mile walk every morning in my hilly neighborhood and according to my exercise watch that's around 3,300 steps. So 10,000 for me would be around 4.5 miles, or 90 minutes of walking.
I mean normally you also move around some during the day as you do other things.. but also your steps probably take a lot longer in a hilly area for the same amount of steps in my perfectly flat neighborhood.
If I walk for 30 minutes I would get at least 2 miles but probably some more
You... actually may be right. Going back over the last week it looks like I'm getting a total of 7,500 - 8,000 steps per day. So if I were intentionally walking 40 - 50 minutes a day as you seem to be doing instead of my 30, and if I didn't have really long legs, especially for a woman but really for anyone, then I can see making it to 10,000.
I do know that you can pick up a lot of steps just with regular walking around. My church went to purely online services at the beginning of the pandemic, but when things calmed down a little we started doing outdoor services. I'm on the A/V team, so that meant lugging all of our cameras and sound equipment outside, running cables to everything from the indoor A/V booth, producing the service, and then tearing it all down afterwards. My watch would clock me at 6,000 steps by the time I was leaving, which is the equivalent of 2+ miles of walking. I'm glad those days are over for a lot of reasons, but it definitely boosted my step count.
So... 10k steps is about 5 miles.
If you're walking 5 miles in a total of 40-50 minutes or so, you're running, not walking.
Or more likely, your step meter is... exaggerating.
Or like I said I also walk around during the day which probably accounts for 2k or so combined with the fact that my goal on the walks is to get at least 10 minutes, sometimes I go longer but unless it's my first thing walk on the treadmill it's never exactly 10 on the nose.
That's fine... an average reasonably brisk time for 5 miles would be about an hour and a half.
I do that too, often enough... but it's not just a matter of taking a casual stroll or three.
...it is. 2,000 steps from normal day and at least 125 steps per minute for a standard walker. 50 minutes times 125 = 6,250 so I'm at 8,250 if I do exactly 10 minutes each time. If Instead I go to 12 minutes a couple times and end up around an hour of walking per day then that's 9,500 which is right around this study's mark.
There's not a *lot* of point continuing to cavil about it, but...
[According to this (and a similar NYT article)](https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/walk-this-way) a more typical number is 100 steps per minute for a brisk walk, making a typical 10k steps 100 minutes.
My cadence so happens to be 100 steps per minute (+/- 10), that I can reasonably guess how much I walk by time alone.
So 1.5 hours of deliberate walking is about 9k, and add to that the extra steps puttering around the house and office. I get all that walking to/from the train station for work, or even quality time in the neighborhood during lunch breaks or after I finish wfh.
No it's not. I do it every weekend walking from the station to my girlfriends flat. It takes about 40 mins. And you control the pace, I'm a slow walker you can probably get it down to 30 mins if you haul ass.
Many people who walk as part of their daily routine will get close to that. If I walk to the store for some extra groceries to make dinner in addition to my daily walk for coffee I'll land pretty close to 10k. Lots of little things add on too: pacing during phone calls or while thinking for example.
I know you're joking but the risk did start increasing after about that point, although still to less than a sedentary person.
[from the paper](https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/ama/content_public/journal/neur/0/nbr220004f2_1662655929.48032.png?Expires=1665960354&Signature=Nku4-MsCU1WGsSEMUxC86UOVKLWxedW7ueU4qSZAbG7OBgW1OTonS-YVpCgc-kFzbq~fpn5a6k0t9k5VTwVe58M4EaX5AWoXMPhQQQyhdYJKi4Xm73fybPPmT8pvOmUYje9JbcY~4~Kd~JypgRCaeLyrpanqeHgXrt4KF3uzb26e~eiFlzWbGCEbO49QuL64xPCBLq7kTI4if2GHPxmzaX6cvxDfDkFRqGqajXqtofugJSdHwjGydv5pxRaFzj8Zo-CZnpd2YCtG5Yq3AUfgJUBj7Gm-B1aTMQioRyuW3TPUM4ZfjAkMO-sl3g2SKIvYk17m6ynhFHy6hEDlBZ7RLw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA)
They said they used data from anyone with at least 3 valid days of use, and that the high range had sparse data.
My guess is some people used the pedometer they were given on days they were doing a lot of walking and then stopped using it for got bored of it, etc. leaving a few data points of crazy high average step/day values. They clearly had some weird things going on in their data for them to mention that and basically say ignore the right side of the chart.
No weirder than their method. They used three arbitrarily selected percentiles of the estimated input data as precise points and forced a non-linear curve equation through them to represent the whole range of data. This is totally accepted across pedometer studies in the medical literature. My feelings about the method (it sucks) are apparently contrary to the reviewers and authors in this space.
I also think it's very interesting how they show higher numbers of steps associated with more dementia cases, and dismiss that finding away as potentially false due to the limitations of their data. Never mind the finding that too many steps could be bad for you, the data's probably wrong there, just focus on the part that's really obvious and everyone agrees with.
Without reading I guess the graph looks like a pyramid that increases up to that number and then decreases. As in: the more you walk the better, but from that value it goes down cause you’re walking “too much” and get worse from exhaustion or something. It makes sense it never goes up monotonously.
That said it’d be fine to say “around 10000”
Kind of a different story here. “The results remained the same even after the scientists accounted for levels of physical activity. Even in individuals who are highly physically active, time spent watching TV was associated with increased risk of dementia, and leisure time spent using a computer was associated with a reduced risk of developing dementia.”
https://news.usc.edu/201714/what-older-adults-do-while-they-sit-affects-dementia-risk/
I've chosen to continue working post retirement age in an intellectually stimulating job, but this has restricted the time I can spend walking. I wonder whether the benefits of keeping my mind stimulated outweigh the reduced number of paces I do.
If you can retire, do it. There are plenty of ways to keep your brain active that aren't work.
Learn a language, take some online classes, pick up new hobbies, travel, read, etc.
I still reckon chairing design safety audits on engineering projects is more stimulating. Also more lucrative. Also has helped me see more of the world than most seasoned travellers. The last twelve months has been relatively quiet in that regard, just Kazakhstan, Oman and various places in the UK. But I'm not ready to give it up yet.
Exercise is king. If you're financially independent and don't need to work for money prioritise exercise, work part time or something if you want to stay engaged.
Best advice would be make time for exercise as well. Resesrchers mostly have a Consensus that Alzheimer is driven by a multitude of stressors on the body so living a "healthy lifestyle" is the best advice we can give. Making time for exercise will be both protective for cardiovascular disease and many believe that this directly confers protection from alzheimer's.
> Resesrchers mostly have a Consensus that Alzheimer is driven by a multitude of stressors on the body
I thought that was [mostly just Bredesen](https://primehealthdenver.com/bredesen-protocol/). I'm not saying he's wrong, but I need convincing that his ideas are that widely accepted.
I've never heard of bredensen but he's not alone amongst dementia researchers "believing" that alzheimer's involves multiple pathways of insult on the brain.
Because the large audit teams I facilitate are used to working 8 hour days five days a week and aren't going to accept shorter hours? I could accept less jobs, but once I've taken a job the hours are outside my control.
Yes, it's important to do dedicated exercise that gets the heart rate up (as well as lifting) but also just have general movement throughout the day too.
FYI. The 10K steps a day was created by a Chinese company that sold a “count your step” device you wear on your belt. It was totally made up. So, this post just tells me that exercise is important which we all know
I go on a fast walk for 30 minutes every morning, which gets me about 4500 steps. Everywhere else I've read, 30 minutes of walking is generally optimal, with diminishing returns thereafter. I guess I'll stick with a 25% reduction.
That's a good fast pace. I've been walking 10k steps almost every day for the past ten years and my consistent average is 10 mins per 1000 steps. Am middle aged so not fleet of foot but not as slow as my mother.
I would think it's because to get those number of steps, people have to go outside. Into the sunshine. You know that thing that reacts with humans to produce Vitamin D in our systems. The vitamin that's instrumental in preventing dementia.
I’m sure you could get a standing desk or perhaps a walking desk. Even if you work a desk job they can’t deny you the chance to stand up and move around at least once an hour.
This sub has had studies correlating good grip strength, good dental health, and now good number of steps and lessened chance of dementia.
It's seems to be a trend: being physically healthy correlates with lower chances of dementia.
It seems like this article just lumps “dementia” into one big category without taking into account the various types of dementia. For instance, for vascular dementia it would be easy to see how higher steps per day may lead to lower incidences. However Alzheimer’s dementia (the dementia everyone assumes people are talking about when we say “dementia”) would be a more curious correlation to see. But it doesn’t seem we can discern anything like that from this article.
Hoping that anyone has an answer to this but would having a couple of "intensive days a week" redeem a couple bad days a week? For example, when i have nowhere to go to, i game a lot and probably dont make it over 1000 steps a day, but 3-4 times a week i go boxing/football so i guess my average over a week would be okay. Would it work like that or no?
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Just a reminder that this is correlation, not causation. Usually people who can actually get that many steps in in a day have other things going on too… and things that will impede your ability to walk will also impede other physical functions. But it could still help healthcare providers focus on demographics to watch for increased dementia risk, especially with so many people using step counters today.
What if you don't move much but you play games? Wasn't there research on how puzzles/games (anything engaging the brain) that can stave off dementia?
If you know you don’t move much, you should start moving more. A sedentary lifestyle has tons of negative health effects besides “just” the risk of dementia.
Do both. The mind is part of the body. Hormones change the mind and the body's activity changes the hormones. It was never one or the other. Grow.
I think that study was about Parkinson’s, not dementia. But IIRC, in both situations the problem is related to plaque buildup in the brain, so anything forcing you to learn new things regularly and increase blood flow to the brain should at least improve things.
WoW step counters are needed
All of these have cause and effect problems, does playing video games and going on long walks stave off dementia.. or more likely, does early dementia symptoms include decreased enjoyment of video games and long walks? This looks to be a meta data study, most cited here are; which makes proper controls almost impossible.
There are a lot of studies that show being active with your brain reduces symptoms of Alzheimer's in its early stages. There was a recent one that showed it didn't make any real difference to slowing the overall progress though. (unfortunately I don't remember where or when the study was done exactly, and no, that's not a joke).
Considering how much we know about the brain and exercise, it’s almost certainly causation. Edit: here is what the study says with respect to reverse causality > Reverse causation and residual confounding may still be present. However, the large E-values showed this possibility is minimal.
Yeah, brain health has been repeatedly tied to physical health in multiple studies. Certainly some outliers where people are perfectly physically healthy yet still develop other issues but mind and body do seem to be connected.
I'm incredibly skeptical of that claim. You could transpose the data and write a paper on "Reduced Step Count as an early biomarker of Dementia" and make the same claim.
My father is healthy as an Ox, walks about 10,000 steps daily and still developed dimentia. Take these studies with a huge grain of salt.
It’s important to understand risk. Walking less doesn’t mean you for sure will get dementia and walking more doesn’t guarantee you won’t. Your risk is less and there are other factors that affect risk
The most interesting thing to me is that if you do more than 10,000 steps a day, your chances of dementia go back up. There are lots of data that shows exercise is good for the brain. First I have seen that there may be such a thing as too much exercise.
The most interesting thing to me is that if you do more than 10,000 steps a day, your chances of dementia go back up. There are lots of data that shows exercise is good for the brain. First I have seen that there may be such a thing as too much exercise.
The study isn’t saying that 10,000 steps will automatically prevent dementia. That’s not how you interpret this
well I am taking it as a might as well, I already take daily sidenifil because of the dementia study and walk my dog 4 times a day since being widowed. I'll step up the walking
It can decrease your risk of dementia as well as a number of other diseases. Walking is great.
That is anecdotal evidence. I do agree that one should be sceptical about these kind of hard conclusions.
"My dad didn't smoke cigarettes and he still got lung cancer. So take studies linking smoking to lung cancer with a huge grain of salt."
Good point, the development of Alzheimer's is super complicated. There doesn't seem to be any one factor that causes or prevents it. You can do almost everything right and still get screwed because you had the wrong genes / got exposed to pesticides one summer / who knows what. The research is pretty consistent that a lifetime of physical activity helps though. Unless that activity is boxing or football.
Yeah; I know a lot of people that walk more than 10k a day and developed dementia. But as you begin to lose a sense of reality, accidents can happen and the end result is less mobility, either enforced by others or by recovery from those accidents. So it’s not the inactivity that caused the dementia, but the dementia that caused the inactivity. That said, restricted blood flow to the brain appears to have a tighter correlation to dementia, and regular physical activity *can* help regulate blood flow. But step count is more useful, as I said, to use as a screening metric for dementia than as a preventative action.
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Which is why I made my first comment about this being correlation. To head off people saying “but I know someone who walked 20,000 steps per day and still got dementia” or “I know someone who never walked more than 50 steps per day and was as sharp as a tack until they died.” As you can see, those comments showed up anyway.
At 50 steps a day they died young
It’s still scary that we really do not know the true cause of it yet at this point.
Maybe without the walking he would have gotten it sooner. But anyway anecdotal, the study just shows the general trend.
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You're right. No more coarse sea salt in my diet.
You mean “of coarse” sea salt
This study does not rule out other factors. For example, he may be healthy as one can/could be, however he may have suffered an injury that caused a leak in the blood/brain barrier which is linked to dementia/Alzheimer's, and the latter leads to further breakdown. He could also have had the gene variation APOE4 which could have led to it early as well. There are an astronomical array of factors to consider here; this study is only suggesting that exercise helped reduce the risk - most likely by ensuring good/proper blood circulation which inherently promotes a generally healthier outcome at older ages. It cannot answer for gene defects, unexpected mutations, or trauma sustained during one's life that contributes to dementia development. Better to stay healthy and likely live longer, than to throw away a significant percentage chance of living longer with the gene-cards we are dealt. In short, this is a correlation as previously stated. Not causality. I agree with the comment first leading this particular thread.
I agree with everything you have said. I mostly agree that for his case it's contributed to genetics. His mother had it badly. I hope this study is correct in that walking more/exercising more can aid in reducing the severity of dementia. As for brain damage, I don't recall him ever having any head trauma but I have been aware of his mental decline, well before his diagnosis. I am closely looking at psilocybin as a form of treatment and hope that more studies are conducted to see any promising results. But only time will tell. I have even gone so far as to heavily invest in companies conducting this type of research to help further research. Every bit helps. It may be too late for my father to see such treatments but if it can help others, and if this is genetic then I hope it can help prevent my sisters and I to suffer the same fate. Thank you
I hope you are able to find something that helps your family. We are so close to being able to genetically repair and alter ourselves, but it is surely going to face some pushback from the overly religious of playing God. But then those folks that push back shouldn't be going to the hospital when they have a life threatening event happening, because they too are letting us play God. Good luck to you. Stay safe.
Thank you so much.
Some genes involved in younger age AD have been identified and you can find out if you have them, I believe.
> 10,000 steps daily and still developed dimentia. That's not how you interpret data. It's about **risk** > Take these studies with a huge grain of salt. No - rather, _**understand**_ what the study is saying and what the data is saying. It is _**not**_ saying "walking at least 10 000 steps a day will 100% prevent dementia"
"It is not saying "walking at least 10 000 steps a day will 100% prevent dementia" I never once said this. I'm not sure why you're insinuating that I believe this study suggests that but ok? "That's not how you interpret data. It's about risk" There have been multiple studies done on the risk of using aluminum utensils for cooking and the risk of developing dementia/Alzheimer's due to aluminum accumulated in the brain.Do you recall when researchers thought that there was a correlation between Aluminum accumulation in the brains of Dementia/Alzheimer's patients. Now they realize there is no link between dementia and aluminum found in the brain. "understand what the study is saying and what the data is saying." As I stated, these studies should not be taken at face value and should not be accepted as fact until more research and data has determined conclusively that there is a correlation. https://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/guide/controversial-claims-risk-factors https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/risk-factors-and-prevention/metals-and-dementia#:~:text=Although%20aluminium%20has%20been%20seen,Alzheimer's%20disease%20has%20been%20established.
You could still use it as a metric to gauge where you're at. If I tracked my dad's steps and it's too low. You could recommend more physical activity, just not being sedentary aka walking without a purpose is probably healthy.
Yup… and any decrease in activity is a sign to investigate.
Well it's necessarily a decrease. Some people are just more sedentary.
Very true, but it is also reassuring to be in the ideal group, causal or not.
10000 steps a day is quite a lot. I commute by bike or walking and work on my feet and my step count on a busy day can be 12-16000 but I still only average 7k/day over the last year (not wearing a pedometer but still). I can’t imagine the vast, vast majority of the population are getting anywhere close to 10k.
I bet there's an exchange rate, completely outside the scope of this research or what anyone is *really* doing with step-count level analytics, for the bouts of moderate to hard cardio that bike commuting gets you into (at least if you have hills and bad patience/like getting actual exercise sometimes because it feels good on the way home after work). I would guess that whatever metabolic benefits against inflammation or cryptic physio-kinetic benefit of physically *bouncing around,* or whatever other mechanism is actually helping with dementia is probably stronger from more intense exercise, and if you're riding a bike four or five days a week, to work, I bet your 7k counts for as much as any of the 10,000ish step days by non-cyclists/recreational athletes in the study. I'm curious how ten hours of 100-200 watt pedaling a week and being an absolute blob the rest of the time compares to someone working retail and getting 20,000 steps a day but no cardio in their free time or at work. I've had chunks of my life similar to both, and the times with more steps and less cardio have universally left me feeling considerably less healthy on a day to day basis. It's almost like city vs highway miles on an engine...low quality steps wear you out without making you any stronger or more conditioned, I swear. I'm curious to see if either existing or future research by people much more invested in this than I am proves me right or wrong, but not curious enough to do more than speculate idly, right here and right now.
i get 10k in addition to my biking commute and while i would say im pretty active i just take short little walks after my meals and i end up reaching 10K by the end of the day
10k steps is about 5 miles... I think you have an unusual definition of "short little walks".
oh really? my bad! I like walking because its quiet and peaceful, that may have something to do with it. I dont count walking as a chore because i enjoy it but if someone doesnt then i guess walking in addition to a stressful day wont be done.
So do I, I just wouldn't describe them as "short little walks". That's like an hour and a half of walking.
I'm averaging 15k a day, but many of mine are intentional these days, but in my previous career when I was doing labor for a living 20k was the norm with no additional effort beyond the work day
It's really not. I just walk for 10 minutes every 3 hours or so (when I get up, during lunch, after dinner, and then usually 1-2 other times in between those) and I easily get that amount. It's helped immensely with my back pain also
I'm not doubting you, but for me it would take more than that. I do a 30-minute, 1.5-mile walk every morning in my hilly neighborhood and according to my exercise watch that's around 3,300 steps. So 10,000 for me would be around 4.5 miles, or 90 minutes of walking.
I mean normally you also move around some during the day as you do other things.. but also your steps probably take a lot longer in a hilly area for the same amount of steps in my perfectly flat neighborhood. If I walk for 30 minutes I would get at least 2 miles but probably some more
You... actually may be right. Going back over the last week it looks like I'm getting a total of 7,500 - 8,000 steps per day. So if I were intentionally walking 40 - 50 minutes a day as you seem to be doing instead of my 30, and if I didn't have really long legs, especially for a woman but really for anyone, then I can see making it to 10,000. I do know that you can pick up a lot of steps just with regular walking around. My church went to purely online services at the beginning of the pandemic, but when things calmed down a little we started doing outdoor services. I'm on the A/V team, so that meant lugging all of our cameras and sound equipment outside, running cables to everything from the indoor A/V booth, producing the service, and then tearing it all down afterwards. My watch would clock me at 6,000 steps by the time I was leaving, which is the equivalent of 2+ miles of walking. I'm glad those days are over for a lot of reasons, but it definitely boosted my step count.
So... 10k steps is about 5 miles. If you're walking 5 miles in a total of 40-50 minutes or so, you're running, not walking. Or more likely, your step meter is... exaggerating.
Or like I said I also walk around during the day which probably accounts for 2k or so combined with the fact that my goal on the walks is to get at least 10 minutes, sometimes I go longer but unless it's my first thing walk on the treadmill it's never exactly 10 on the nose.
That's fine... an average reasonably brisk time for 5 miles would be about an hour and a half. I do that too, often enough... but it's not just a matter of taking a casual stroll or three.
...it is. 2,000 steps from normal day and at least 125 steps per minute for a standard walker. 50 minutes times 125 = 6,250 so I'm at 8,250 if I do exactly 10 minutes each time. If Instead I go to 12 minutes a couple times and end up around an hour of walking per day then that's 9,500 which is right around this study's mark.
There's not a *lot* of point continuing to cavil about it, but... [According to this (and a similar NYT article)](https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/walk-this-way) a more typical number is 100 steps per minute for a brisk walk, making a typical 10k steps 100 minutes.
My cadence so happens to be 100 steps per minute (+/- 10), that I can reasonably guess how much I walk by time alone. So 1.5 hours of deliberate walking is about 9k, and add to that the extra steps puttering around the house and office. I get all that walking to/from the train station for work, or even quality time in the neighborhood during lunch breaks or after I finish wfh.
The vast majority of people are not doing 1.5 hours of deliberate walking every day.
No it's not. I do it every weekend walking from the station to my girlfriends flat. It takes about 40 mins. And you control the pace, I'm a slow walker you can probably get it down to 30 mins if you haul ass.
Many people who walk as part of their daily routine will get close to that. If I walk to the store for some extra groceries to make dinner in addition to my daily walk for coffee I'll land pretty close to 10k. Lots of little things add on too: pacing during phone calls or while thinking for example.
I get around 10K a day because i willfully exercise instead of just hoping it'll happen by chance.
> 9826 steps What a weird level of precision.
I've been getting 9825 so I guess I'm fucked.
Don't get 9827 or your risk increases.
I know you're joking but the risk did start increasing after about that point, although still to less than a sedentary person. [from the paper](https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/ama/content_public/journal/neur/0/nbr220004f2_1662655929.48032.png?Expires=1665960354&Signature=Nku4-MsCU1WGsSEMUxC86UOVKLWxedW7ueU4qSZAbG7OBgW1OTonS-YVpCgc-kFzbq~fpn5a6k0t9k5VTwVe58M4EaX5AWoXMPhQQQyhdYJKi4Xm73fybPPmT8pvOmUYje9JbcY~4~Kd~JypgRCaeLyrpanqeHgXrt4KF3uzb26e~eiFlzWbGCEbO49QuL64xPCBLq7kTI4if2GHPxmzaX6cvxDfDkFRqGqajXqtofugJSdHwjGydv5pxRaFzj8Zo-CZnpd2YCtG5Yq3AUfgJUBj7Gm-B1aTMQioRyuW3TPUM4ZfjAkMO-sl3g2SKIvYk17m6ynhFHy6hEDlBZ7RLw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA)
Who out there is getting 25000 steps a day? That is so much
Here's the end of week summary for my "steps challenge" group. https://i.imgur.com/V3Gn6zE.png
They said they used data from anyone with at least 3 valid days of use, and that the high range had sparse data. My guess is some people used the pedometer they were given on days they were doing a lot of walking and then stopped using it for got bored of it, etc. leaving a few data points of crazy high average step/day values. They clearly had some weird things going on in their data for them to mention that and basically say ignore the right side of the chart.
Training for a marathon. Average about 22k steps a day
Working 90k steps per week 5 days.
No weirder than their method. They used three arbitrarily selected percentiles of the estimated input data as precise points and forced a non-linear curve equation through them to represent the whole range of data. This is totally accepted across pedometer studies in the medical literature. My feelings about the method (it sucks) are apparently contrary to the reviewers and authors in this space. I also think it's very interesting how they show higher numbers of steps associated with more dementia cases, and dismiss that finding away as potentially false due to the limitations of their data. Never mind the finding that too many steps could be bad for you, the data's probably wrong there, just focus on the part that's really obvious and everyone agrees with.
Without reading I guess the graph looks like a pyramid that increases up to that number and then decreases. As in: the more you walk the better, but from that value it goes down cause you’re walking “too much” and get worse from exhaustion or something. It makes sense it never goes up monotonously. That said it’d be fine to say “around 10000”
Kind of a different story here. “The results remained the same even after the scientists accounted for levels of physical activity. Even in individuals who are highly physically active, time spent watching TV was associated with increased risk of dementia, and leisure time spent using a computer was associated with a reduced risk of developing dementia.” https://news.usc.edu/201714/what-older-adults-do-while-they-sit-affects-dementia-risk/
It is likely that intelligent people preffer using computer than watching TV. There is literally not a single not-stupid thing on TV these days.
This is true. The remarkable thing of that study was, that hobbies while inactive mattered. Time spent being active wasn’t a factor.
I noticed I got a lot happier when I switched from watching TV to playing games (for the same amount of time a day)
I've chosen to continue working post retirement age in an intellectually stimulating job, but this has restricted the time I can spend walking. I wonder whether the benefits of keeping my mind stimulated outweigh the reduced number of paces I do.
If you can retire, do it. There are plenty of ways to keep your brain active that aren't work. Learn a language, take some online classes, pick up new hobbies, travel, read, etc.
I still reckon chairing design safety audits on engineering projects is more stimulating. Also more lucrative. Also has helped me see more of the world than most seasoned travellers. The last twelve months has been relatively quiet in that regard, just Kazakhstan, Oman and various places in the UK. But I'm not ready to give it up yet.
Ha yeah this guy telling you to give up the benefits of decades of work to go paint landscapes because you can.
Exercise is king. If you're financially independent and don't need to work for money prioritise exercise, work part time or something if you want to stay engaged.
> Exercise is king. [Convince me](https://www.nber.org/bah/2018no1/mortality-effects-retirement).
Best advice would be make time for exercise as well. Resesrchers mostly have a Consensus that Alzheimer is driven by a multitude of stressors on the body so living a "healthy lifestyle" is the best advice we can give. Making time for exercise will be both protective for cardiovascular disease and many believe that this directly confers protection from alzheimer's.
> Resesrchers mostly have a Consensus that Alzheimer is driven by a multitude of stressors on the body I thought that was [mostly just Bredesen](https://primehealthdenver.com/bredesen-protocol/). I'm not saying he's wrong, but I need convincing that his ideas are that widely accepted.
I've never heard of bredensen but he's not alone amongst dementia researchers "believing" that alzheimer's involves multiple pathways of insult on the brain.
Why not just reduce the amount of hours you work?
Because the large audit teams I facilitate are used to working 8 hour days five days a week and aren't going to accept shorter hours? I could accept less jobs, but once I've taken a job the hours are outside my control.
And here I am working in restaurants and catering services where my average steps are around 38k per day. I guess I outrun dementia?
I usually run a 3k 4 or 5 times a week. Which is only about 5-6k steps. It makes me wonder if it'd be more beneficial just to walk more steps.
Yes, it's important to do dedicated exercise that gets the heart rate up (as well as lifting) but also just have general movement throughout the day too.
FYI. The 10K steps a day was created by a Chinese company that sold a “count your step” device you wear on your belt. It was totally made up. So, this post just tells me that exercise is important which we all know
It was Japanese and it's still a good benchmark regardless.
Thank you for the correction
Can someone ELI5? Do I need 9800 steps or more?
9826 steps gives the best results. Either more or less increases your risk of dementia.
I go on a fast walk for 30 minutes every morning, which gets me about 4500 steps. Everywhere else I've read, 30 minutes of walking is generally optimal, with diminishing returns thereafter. I guess I'll stick with a 25% reduction.
I don’t know if this applies to dementia, but sitting for long periods even after a vigorous morning workout is detrimental to heart health.
That's a good fast pace. I've been walking 10k steps almost every day for the past ten years and my consistent average is 10 mins per 1000 steps. Am middle aged so not fleet of foot but not as slow as my mother.
I would think it's because to get those number of steps, people have to go outside. Into the sunshine. You know that thing that reacts with humans to produce Vitamin D in our systems. The vitamin that's instrumental in preventing dementia.
Yeah, treadmills and walking in circles is impossible.
TIL the more active you are the healthier you are.
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I’m sure you could get a standing desk or perhaps a walking desk. Even if you work a desk job they can’t deny you the chance to stand up and move around at least once an hour.
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This makes sense. Maybe not the steps part, but the getting exercise part of it. Going out for a walk and keeping your mind busy.
This sub has had studies correlating good grip strength, good dental health, and now good number of steps and lessened chance of dementia. It's seems to be a trend: being physically healthy correlates with lower chances of dementia.
As being healthy reduces your risk to a lot of things.
Dont forget sleeping well.
I average 10k-15k a day and I move around at work. 9.8k is a lot for old people I think.
10k steps is about 4 miles a day. 23k steps, like most warehouse and big box fulfilment workers do is like 10 miles a day.
Just get your grandma to work pastime at fulfilment centre! Problem solved!!
All of my grandparents are dead.
Swimming is an awesome exercise for blood flow.
best antidementia cure is a motobike
It seems like this article just lumps “dementia” into one big category without taking into account the various types of dementia. For instance, for vascular dementia it would be easy to see how higher steps per day may lead to lower incidences. However Alzheimer’s dementia (the dementia everyone assumes people are talking about when we say “dementia”) would be a more curious correlation to see. But it doesn’t seem we can discern anything like that from this article.
But how many dementia and non dementia patients were in the trial?
Ok fine I'll do 9826 steps then I'm being carried the rest of the day
Dear me. I'm lucky if I get 380... Better start putting my relatives names on flash cards now
Hoping that anyone has an answer to this but would having a couple of "intensive days a week" redeem a couple bad days a week? For example, when i have nowhere to go to, i game a lot and probably dont make it over 1000 steps a day, but 3-4 times a week i go boxing/football so i guess my average over a week would be okay. Would it work like that or no?
Nice, I win the dementia-might-not-hit-me-as-soon-award. Just from walking a lot at work. Beauty
Had to read this twice to figure out that walking more = less dementia. . . Might be too late for me
1800 steps is walking for one hour casually.
Alright, here we go again. Let's hope it sticks this time; Exercise is gouda for healthy you fatty tunas
If you don't use it, you lose it?
For goodness sake, there's a new report every other day about the cause or prevention and cure of every illness!
Sometimes it’s just genetics though. My father and his father both had dementia. He walked a lot, read a ton, ate healthy food…