The number of steps a person should walk every day to start seeing health benefits is lower than previously thought, according to the largest analysis to investigate this.

The study found that walking at least 3967 steps a day started to reduce the risk of dying from any cause, and 2337 steps a day reduced the risk of dying from diseases of the heart and blood vessels (cardiovascular disease).

However, the new analysis of 226,889 people from 17 different studies around the world also showed that the more someone walks, the greater the health benefits. The risk of dying from any cause or from cardiovascular disease decreases significantly with every 500 to 1000 extra steps walked. An increase of 1000 steps a day was associated with a 15% reduction in the risk of dying from any cause, and an increase of 500 steps a day was associated with a 7% reduction in dying from cardiovascular disease.

The researchers, led by Maciej Banach, MD, PhD, of the Medical University of Lodz, Poland found that even if people walked as many as 20,000 steps a day, the health benefits continued to increase. They have not found an upper limit yet.

“Our study confirms that the more you walk, the better,” Dr. Banach affirmed. "We found that this applied to both men and women, irrespective of age, and irrespective of whether you live in a temperate, sub-tropical or sub-polar region of the world, or a region with a mixture of climates. In addition, our analysis indicates that as little as 4,000 steps a day are needed to significantly reduce deaths from any cause, and even fewer to reduce deaths from cardiovascular disease.”

 “In a world where we have more and more advanced drugs to target specific conditions such as cardiovascular disease, I believe we should always emphasize that lifestyle changes, including diet and exercise, which was a main hero of our analysis, might be at least as, or even more effective in reducing cardiovascular risk and prolonging lives," Dr. Banach said.