You’ve probably heard the phrase “sitting kills,” and that’s because the more sedentary your lifestyle the higher your chances for some serious negative health consequences. Now scientists say they have the first longitudinal metrics for how many steps you really need to counteract all your time sitting. Veuer’s Tony Spitz has the details.
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00:00You've probably heard the phrase sitting kills and that's because the more sedentary your lifestyle,
00:04the higher your chances for some serious negative health consequences. Those include a higher chance
00:09of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and even a shorter life expectancy. Now scientists
00:15say they have the first longitudinal data for how many steps you really need to counteract all your
00:20time sitting. They track the health and activity data for more than 72,000 volunteers since 2006.
00:26Finding that walking 9,000 to 10,000 steps every day or the equivalent of around five miles would
00:32effectively counteract a sedentary lifestyle. A sedentary lifestyle was defined by sitting on
00:37average 10.6 hours every day. 10,000 steps was found to significantly reduce the negative health
00:43effects associated with inactivity with the study finding that those who achieved those steps per
00:47day had a 21% lower chance of being diagnosed with cardiovascular disease and 39% lower risk
00:54of mortality. However if you can't make the full 10,000 even a portion of those steps can help
00:59counteract the effects of sitting with the researchers finding that 50% of the health
01:04benefits could be achieved when participants reached just 4,000 to 4,500 steps per day.