New Delhi: A systematic review, the first of its kind around the world, which comprehensively examined if taking more steps per day improves health outcomes, has found that nearly 7,000 steps each day significantly lowers the probability of diseases and conditions including cancers, type 2 diabetes, dementia, depression, and falls.
Published in The Lancet Public Health journal Thursday, the study also says that although 10,000 steps per day can still be a viable target for those who are more active, a relatively lower goal of 7,000 steps per day is associated with clinically meaningful improvements in health outcomes and might be a more realistic and achievable target for most.
It also revealed that even modest step counts—around 4,000 steps per day—are linked to better health, compared to very low activity, say around 2,000 steps per day. For some conditions, such as heart disease, health benefits continued to increase once a person crosses the 7,000 steps-mark, but for most conditions, the benefits tended to level off.
The findings are based on 57 studies involving 1,60,000 individuals from several countries and conducted between 2014 and February 2025. Of these, at least 31 studies were included in meta-analyses, which refers to systematically combining data from multiple studies to arrive at a single conclusion.
Most scientific reviews, before this, focused on the association between step count and overall death rate and cardiovascular disease, leaving gaps in the understanding of how these factors are linked to health outcomes, such as cancer, and cognitive functioning.
The latest evidence underscores the value of using daily step counts as a straightforward way to measure physical activity, the authors have said. Adding, “… these results could help shape future public health guidelines and recommendations, encouraging more people to track their steps as a practical way to improve their health.”
Independent experts ThePrint spoke to largely agreed with the assessment.
“The significance of this study is it combines data from multiple studies and becomes powerful evidence on benefits of physical activity and its dose-dependent relationship with health outcomes,” said Dr Shifalika Goenka, deputy director & head, health promotion, physical activity and obesity prevention at the New Delhi-based Centre for Chronic Disease Control.
The Centre is a collaboration between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
Goenka, however, also said that while we are seeing incremental benefits from 7,000 to 10,000 daily steps even in the current study, these benefits are marginal for the outcomes the researchers have tested. “But if you look at calorie burnout, effects on cardiac health, obesity, waist circumference, the benefits will continue to rise,” she told ThePrint.
She also pointed out that the current data set is from the Western population and should be contextualised. In India’s context, individuals need to work harder to accrue health benefits due to a host of factors including air pollution. “The key takeaway message should be that 7,000 steps should not be seen as a kind of cut-off and those who can should keep targeting 10,000 daily steps in order to maintain better fitness and improve health outcomes while those at 7,000 should also not be disheartened.”
Goenka also pointed out that a daily target of 10,000 steps is arbitrary, though easier to promote and remember, underlining that health benefits start when one moves from no activity to a certain level of activity every day—every additional step helps.
“But as the study clearly says, the risk of several diseases goes down remarkably with every step and even 7,000 steps is excellent. It may be good enough for improving most health outcomes, though benefits sustain at 10,000 steps or even 12,000 step-counts,” she emphasised.
Most benefits plateau after 7,000 steps
Previous physical activity guidelines have considered step counts but found the evidence base insufficient for making recommendations. However, the past decade has seen a rapid advancement in evidence surrounding step counts, the analysis noted. While evidence thus far did link higher daily step counts with better health outcomes, they primarily linked it only with lowered odds of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease.
The new research examined prospective dose-response association between daily steps and a wide range of health outcomes, including all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality, type 2 diabetes incidence, cancer incidence and mortality, besides dementia, depressive symptoms, physical function, and falls.
It said that in the case of those achieving the target of 7,000 steps, risk of all-cause mortality declined by 47 percent, cardiovascular disease by 25 percent, cancer by 6 percent, cancer death by 37 percent, type 2 diabetes by 14 percent, dementia by 38 percent, depression by 22 percent, and falls by 28 percent, compared to others taking just 2,000 steps or fewer, which the study classified as very low physical activity.
The findings also indicated even modest step counts, around 4,000 steps per day, are linked to better health compared to very low activity.
Based on these, the researchers noted that there are three key takeaways: the first, that even modest daily step counts are associated with health benefits; second, that 7,000 steps per day was associated with sizable risk reductions across most outcomes, compared with the reference of 2,000 steps per day; and third, even though risk continued to decrease beyond 7,000 steps per day, it plateaued for some outcomes.
Although 10,000 steps per day, an unofficial target for decades without a clear evidence base, was associated with substantially lower risks for all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease incidence, cancer mortality, dementia, and depressive symptoms—compared to 7,000 steps per day—the incremental improvement beyond 7,000 steps per day was small, and there was no statistical difference between 7,000 steps per day and a higher step count for all the other outcomes. “Therefore, 7,000 steps per day might be a more realistic and achievable recommendation for some, but 10,000 steps per day can still be a viable target for those who are more active,” said the authors of the study.
Indians low on physical activity
Public health specialists and clinicians ThePrint spoke to maintained that physical activity, even in small amounts, plays a crucial role in improving overall health and reducing the risk of chronic diseases.
“It’s never too late to start, movement truly matters. We now know that even light activity accumulated through the day can yield meaningful health benefits. The real power lies in being consistent over the long term, not aiming for perfection,” said Dr A.P. Singh, director of internal medicine at Yashoda Medicity.
When it comes to step count, more than 5,000 steps per day is often considered a threshold between sedentary and active behavior but ideally, adults should aim for 8,000 to 10,000 steps daily, he told ThePrint.
He pointed out that each additional 1,000 steps per day are associated with a significantly lower risk of premature mortality and continuous walks, say a 30-minute brisk walk, have been found to offer better cardiometabolic benefits than multiple shorter bouts of walking.
Yet, the 2022 WHO Global Status Report on Physical Activity, which was the first such report to compile country-level data, had shown that 57 percent of Indian participants surveyed did not meet recommended physical activity levels. This included both adults and adolescents, with women generally being less active than men.
The report also showed that India has the 12th highest prevalence of insufficient physical activity among the 195 countries surveyed by the United Nations global health agency.
In this context, Singh underlined what he often tells his patients: “It doesn’t have to be intense; what matters most is building lifelong habits of regular physical activity and reducing prolonged sitting time.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)