Taking Most of Daily Steps in Longer Bouts Beneficial

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 29, 2025 (HealthDay News) — For suboptimally active adults, accumulating most of their daily steps in longer bouts is associated with lower mortality and cardiovascular disease (CVD) incidence, according to a study published online Oct. 27 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Borja del Pozo Cruz, Ph.D., from Villaviciosa de Odón in Spain, and colleagues examined associations of step accumulation patterns with all-cause mortality and CVD incidence in persons with 8,000 or fewer daily steps in a prospective cohort study involving 33,560 persons. Participants were categorized as having activity bouts of <5 minutes, 5 to <10 minutes, 10 to <15 minutes, or ≥15 minutes according to the bout in which they accumulated most of their steps.

A total of 735 deaths and 3,119 CVD events occurred during an average 7.9-year follow-up. The researchers found that at 9.5 years, cumulative all-cause mortality decreased and was 4.36, 1.83, 0.84, and 0.80 percent for bouts <5 minutes, 5 to <10 minutes, 10 to <15 minutes, and ≥15 minutes, respectively. At 9.5 years, cumulative CVD incidence followed a similar pattern and was 13.03, 11.09, 7.71, and 4.39 percent for bouts <5 minutes, 5 to <10 minutes, 10 to <15 minutes, and ≥15 minutes, respectively.

“We found that among persons taking fewer than the recommended number of steps per day (<8,000 steps/d), those who took most of their daily steps in longer bouts had lower risks for all-cause mortality and incident CVD than those taking steps in shorter bouts,” the authors write.

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