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Walking 8,000 steps 1-2 days a week linked to major health benefits

Current research suggests that walking 8,000 brisk steps or more per day may be the sweet spot for receiving the health benefits walking provides.
People who have trouble finding time to walk each day of the week will be encouraged by a new study that demonstrates walking just one to two days is still associated with a significant reduction in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.
The study’s authors found that each additional day walked confers greater benefits.

Briskly walking 8,000 or more steps each day of the week is associated with a significant decrease in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. A new study finds, however, that people taking just 8,000 steps one or two days a week are also less likely to die over a 10-year follow-up period.

The study published in JAMA Network Open found that over a decade of follow-up, people 20 years or older who took 8,000 or more steps on one or two days a week were 14.9{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} less likely to die compared to people who were sedentary.

The risk of death dropped as the number of days involved increased. For example, exercising from three to seven days a week was associated with a 16.5{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} reduction in all-cause and cardiovascular deaths.

The same pattern held true for people meeting step goals of 6,000 to 10,000 steps.

Previous research found that mortality risk decreases up to 10,000 steps per day for people younger than 60 and 8,000 for people older than 60.

The study’s findings pertain to both “weekend warriors,” people who confine their exercise to non-work days, and to people who steal a few hours to walk during the week.

The study cites recent data showing the average American takes just 4,800 steps a day, too few to provide much of a health benefit.

“Brisk walking” is defined as walking three miles an hour. If you can speak song lyrics but not sing them, you are walking briskly.

The current study compared data from the U.S. 2005 and 2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey with the National Death Index up to the year 2019. It incorporated accelerometer data from 3,101 participants 20 years or older and was a nationally representative sample. It included a similar number of women and men, and 50.9{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} were White, 21.5{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} Black, 23.7{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} Hispanic, and 3.9{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} other race and ethnicity.

The participants most likely to walk 8,000 or more steps every day were more likely to be young, male, Hispanic, insured, and married. They were also typically never-smokers and were less likely to be obese or have comorbidities.

For many people, walking 8,000 steps each day requires a significant commitment of time. 8,000 steps are about four miles, which, walking at three miles per hour, comes to a total of about an hour and 20 minutes every day. Steps can be taken simultaneously or in shorter periods of brisk walking.

The study was led by Dr. Kosuke Inoue of Kyoto University in Japan, collaborating with researchers from UCLA in California. Dr. Inoue explained why the study was undertaken:

“We started this study to answer the question one of my patients asked during an outpatient clinic: ‘It is hard for me to keep sufficient steps every day. Is it okay to focus on walking only during the weekend?’”

Steps studies often consider the value of a week’s worth of various step goals, and Dr. Inoue saw a lack of evidence regarding the possible benefits of walking just a few days a week.

“Given that a lack of time is one of the major barriers to exercise in modern society,” said Dr. Inoue, “our findings provide useful information to recommend walking even for a couple of days per week to reduce mortality risk.”

“This is one of the first studies to use direct measures of daily steps using a wearable accelerometer over a 10-year followup period,” said Dr. Paul Arciero, a professor in the Health and Human Physiological Sciences Department at Skidmore College, who was not involved in the study.

Walking is viewed as a simple, low impact means of making a person’s life less sedentary. A sedentary lifestyle has been linked to an increased risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.

“Further, a sedentary lifestyle drastically increases the risk of cardiometabolic disease such as abdominal obesity, hypertension (high blood pressure), type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and certain inflammatory conditions and cancers,” said Dr. Arciero.

According to Harvard Medical School, taking one’s steps has additional, less-obvious benefits. Walking offsets the effect of weight-promoting genes, reduces breast cancer risk, and boosts one’s immune system. It can also lessen arthritis-based joint pain, and even a 15-minute walk can curb a craving for chocolate, both generally and in response to stress.

The study’s findings should provide valuable information for clinicians and health professionals, said Dr. Inoue. He suggested a reader’s takeaway should be that for people who have difficulties engaging in regular exercise, “achieving recommended daily steps only a couple of days per week can have meaningful health benefits.”

Describing the study’s conclusions as “encouraging,” Dr. Arciero suggested the study may help people who don’t have enough time to walk 8,000 steps a day overcome feelings that walking less is pointless.

“We now have scientific evidence that proves this mindset is not true, and even a couple of days is beneficial!” said Dr. Arciero.

He said the study underscores the value of increasing one’s daily step count:

“Always a good reminder that any amount of walking, even one to two days per week, is still better than no walking.”

How major retailers are trying to change how America consumes health care

Illustration of a price tag in the shape of a red cross

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Amazon, Walmart, CVS, Dollar General and other big retailers are elbowing their way into health care delivery, pushing a customized consumer experience driven by digital health products.

What’s happening: At its core, these companies are pulling together different tech-enabled services — urgent, primary, home and specialty care, pharmacy, and, in some cases, full integration with an insurer.

“Convenience is really front and center to those plays. They are trying to capture the attention of the patient when they already own that consumer,” Caroline Hofmann, head of emerging businesses at virtual specialty care company Thirty Madison.

Why it matters: A more user-friendly portal to the health system could lead to more engaged patients and better access to care in underserved areas. It could even yield a sustainable model for profitably offering better care for less money.

But the retailers’ forays are prompting growing anti-trust and privacy concerns, as well as fears of further erosion of the doctor-patient relationship once considered central to coordinated care.

What they are saying: “If you fast forward 10 years from now, people are not going to believe how primary care was administered,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in a recent announcement about the company’s $3.9 billion acquisition of concierge medicine provider One Medical.

With that deal, which closed last month, Amazon brought in an on-demand virtual care services platform, more than 125 locations and a piece of the Medicare Advantage business.

Driving the news: Yesterday, Best Buy Health launched a hospital-at-home program with North Carolina-based Atrium Health. The tech retailer bought the remote patient monitoring company Current Health in 2021. Best Buy said it will provide patient education, its at-home care platform and devices, and technical support via specially-trained Geek Squad agents.

It came on the heels of Walmart Health announcing last week that it plans to nearly double the footprint of its in-store clinics, which offer primary, behavioral health vision and dental care. In the fall, Walmart also inked a 10-year Medicare Advantage deal with UnitedHealth Group.
In January, CVS Health announced a plan to buy Oak Street Health, a primary care group focused on Medicare patients. The pharmacy giant already owns insurer Aetna, pharmacy benefit manager CVS-Caremark, home health company Signify Health and health care service brands MinuteClinic and HealthHUB.
Also in January, Walgreens-backed primary care company VillageMD, scooped up more primary, specialty and urgent care investments, augmenting plans to open more than 500 full-service doctors’ offices in Walgreens locations,
Other companies like Rite Aid, Albertson’s, and Dollar General have launched programs in health care delivery.

Between the lines: Amazon, CVS and Walmart have made some of the most consequential moves by combining their massive retail footprints with assets like primary or urgent care sites, pharmacies and some sort of relationship with insurers, experts say.

“They’re all acquiring every piece of medicine,” Robert Pearl, a Stanford University professor and former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group, told Axios.
“Medicine as we know it will be very very different assuming they’re successful. They’re big companies, they’re smart companies.”

Be smart: Depending on the retailer, patients might have access to virtual care services, book appointments and fill prescriptions via an app.

They could get same-day care, get preventative services like vaccines and pick up their drugs in-store. A health worker might walk them down store aisles and guide them to healthy food purchases and wellness products.

In the first wave of this trend, retailers were more focused on urgent care or one-off visits for vaccines, said Jacob Effron, a principal at Redpoint Ventures.

“The criticism that could’ve been levied at that is that patients could just go for that ad hoc care and not have an ongoing relationship with a primary care doctor,” he said.
In recent months, retailers are investing in end-to-end primary care. “That’s what gets me increasingly excited about their role because there’s only so much you can do as the urgent care provider and much much more you can do when you have that longitudinal relationship between the doctor and a patient over time,” Effron said.

Between the lines: Each of these businesses also are clearly eyeing a very lucrative segment of health care: Medicare Advantage. More than half of eligible seniors are now covered by privately-run Medicare.

Medicare Advantage is attractive because its payment models are geared toward rewarding providers for wellness and prevention care. Payments are capped so there’s an incentive to use integrated care to keep people healthy rather than providing services when they are sick.
For some retailers, it’s similar to the Kaiser Permanente model, where the payer and provider are completely aligned, Pearl said. But the retailers could create an HMO on steroids.
“Why has Kaiser Permanente never really expanded nationally? It’s very hard to get enough of a population in a local area to provide it. You can’t hire enough specialists, enough doctors,” he said. “The beauty of the retail giants is how big they are. If you get every Amazon Prime member to join, they immediately have enough volume they need to put in place a high-functioning system.”

What to watch: How these businesses evolve.

Amazon until now has been mostly virtual in its offerings, Effron said. “It begs the question, will they do a similar model to what some of these others have done and put clinics in Whole Foods?”

The bottom line: This still makes up a very small segment of health care delivery — and may not solve the medical system’s biggest problems.

“These players ultimately have to deliver the same or better outcomes at a lower cost in order to be in-network and get recommended by payers as well as picked by the employers,” Hofmann said.
And, she said, they can certainly increase access. “It remains to be seen if they can really bend the cost curve,” she said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Caroline Hofmann’s name.

‘Health Freedom’ Activists Gain Seats On Major Hospital’s Board : NPR

Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s campus in Sarasota, Fla. A few recently-elected customers of the general public hospital’s board are so-known as “wellness liberty” activists who are opposed to COVID vaccines and therapy protocols for the illness.

Courtesy of Sarasota Memorial Hospital

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Courtesy of Sarasota Memorial Healthcare facility

Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s campus in Sarasota, Fla. 3 recently-elected members of the public hospital’s board are so-identified as “overall health freedom” activists who are opposed to COVID vaccines and cure protocols for the illness.

Courtesy of Sarasota Memorial Clinic

A Florida healthcare facility has turn into the newest front for political activists keen to obstacle protocols for treating COVID.

Even though most of the 6,000 hospitals in the United States are privately-operate, about 200 are controlled by publicly-elected board associates, in accordance to Larry Gage, previous president of the Countrywide Affiliation of Public Hospitals. Ordinarily, these elections generally have almost nothing to do with national politics or culture war problems.

But with seats opening on the Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s board before this year, a group of political activists opposed to COVID protocols noticed an possibility. Now, the medical center has 3 new board members who issue the efficiency of vaccines and distribute professional medical misinformation. Whilst they’re a minority on the nine-man or woman board, their victory has thrown the healthcare facility board’s commonly silent conferences into chaos.

“Wellbeing flexibility” activists

More than 200 men and women confirmed up to the new members’ to start with conference in late November, the greatest turnout that chairman Tramm Hudson had at any time viewed in his eight several years on the board.

Micheila Matthew and a lot more than a dozen self-explained “wellness freedom activists” demanded an investigation into the hospital’s administration for the duration of the worst of the pandemic. Some had shed loved types during the peak of the pandemic and blamed the hospital. Other people blasted the hospital’s leadership for ignoring non-mainstream COVID remedies these kinds of as ivermectin, which scientific studies have established do not proficiently handle COVID.

What a bottle of ivermectin reveals about the shadowy world of COVID telemedicine

“We want answers,” Matthew claimed. “There will be no amnesty. You unsuccessful.”

Even though related general public clashes have transpired somewhere else, the “health and fitness liberty” movement is especially powerful in Florida. Gov. Ron DeSantis was 1 of initial condition leaders to roll again mask and social distancing rules in 2020. Recently, he’s utilised rhetoric which is more and more hostile to vaccines.

“These persons need to have to be heard. And we have a highlight on us in Sarasota. We can be the improve that everyone else desires in other health care methods,” mentioned Bridgette Fiorucci, just one of the new board associates, at the November conference.

A doctor spread COVID misinformation and renewed her license with a mouse click

Fiorucci, a registered nurse who has labored on the front traces all through the pandemic, told NPR in an interview that she’s by no means gotten the COVID vaccine.

“There are quite a few individuals that I know that have been wounded or have had adverse reactions,” Fiorucci stated.

Even though there have been very uncommon instances of serious facet outcomes, the scientific analysis has overwhelmingly proven that COVID vaccines are risk-free and helpful. Men and women stand a significantly bigger hazard of dying by heading unvaccinated.

In an job interview with a weekly newspaper in Sarasota, an additional new board member – also a registered nurse – dismissed the scientific consensus about the vaccines as “unquestioned uniformity” that “violates all earlier health-related requirements.”

Lots of of the hospital’s medical professionals and nurses spoke up at the board meeting to drive again in opposition to accusations that the clinic unsuccessful the group.

“Physicians want to support individuals. That is the cause we all do this,” said Dr. Sarah Temple, an unexpected emergency drugs medical professional.

“Even with our most heroic initiatives – weekly conferences the place we scoured the latest proof and looked for matters that would actually work the outstanding teamwork, determination, and hard operate that I observed from my colleagues through the medical center – we just couldn’t help save so a lot of of our individuals,” she said with a deep sigh.

The “health care independence” movement has claimed a lot of victories in local elections all around the region, with teams like Stand For Wellness Independence pushing the result in in sheriff, school board, and county clerk races. Anti-vaccine candidates ran for community medical center boards in Washington Condition previous year, but dropped. The victory at Sarasota Memorial seems to be the initial of its kind.

This Doctor Spread False Information About COVID. She Still Kept Her Medical License

A retired physician and outspoken conservative named Stephen Guffanti aided lead the campaign. In viral videos and public appearances, he tells a spectacular tale of remaining falsely imprisoned at Sarasota Memorial Medical center when he was sick.

“They wouldn’t allow me go away,” Guffanti informed a group at an celebration with Sarasota County Moms For The united states.

“It turns out that it is really much more rewarding to have you die in the medical center than go residence,” he additional, a reference to an unfounded and widely debunked conspiracy principle that hospitals inflate COVID deaths for revenue.

Evaluate of the hospital’s practices

At their inaugural assembly, the new board associates successfully pushed to open up a critique of the hospital’s COVID procedures.

In an email, medical center spokesperson Kim Savage stated the overview will look into “unique, person patient treatment considerations expressed at the latest medical center board meeting, which includes those people shared by Dr. Guffanti.” She explained the management is also “using a broader seem at care throughout the pandemic, to evaluate the lessons uncovered and prepare for the potential.”

“We are an elected system,” said Hudson, the board chair. “If the citizens elect individuals that may well have some option sights, […] I feel that we need to pay attention to the citizens,” he mentioned.

Whilst he isn’t going to obtain into the conspiracy theories about the hospital, Hudson claims the overview will put individuals at simplicity. But lots of other individuals interviewed for this story had been deeply disturbed.

“This variety of wellbeing independence propaganda rhetoric, it is really not just an academic dialogue. It’s endangering the life of Americans, and in this circumstance Floridians,” claimed Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine specialist at Texas Children’s Medical center who has adopted clinical freedom actions for yrs.

Pro-Trump counties continue to suffer far higher COVID death tolls

Hotez estimates that 200,000 Us residents needlessly died in the very last half of 2021 and early 2022 simply because they were not vaccinated . “As a societal drive, that’s an huge killer,” he claimed.

The hospital’s inner overview is underway now. Results will be built public by March of up coming 12 months.