August 6, 2025
Walking is good for more than just your brain. A large new analysis found that taking 7,000 steps a day can not only help to reduce your risk of memory and thinking problems, it may also lower the chances that you’ll develop heart disease, type 2 diabetes and depression — all risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease. It can also lower your risk of falling and may even help you live longer.
Unlike earlier step studies that focused primarily on heart health and longevity, the new analysis is the first to comprehensively examine how aiming for more steps a day can reduce the risk of many of the leading chronic ailments of aging. The findings were published in The Lancet Public Health.
For the review, researchers pooled results from 31 rigorous studies that looked at the effects of walking and step count, a general gauge of physical activity, on various chronic illnesses. The studies involved more than 160,000 men and women living in the United States, Britain, Japan and other countries.
They found that compared to those who walked about 2,000 steps a day, those who took 7,000 or more steps a day, on average, reduced the risk of dying prematurely by 47 percent. Looking at individual illnesses, taking 7,000 steps a day reduced the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia by 38 percent; heart and vascular disease by 25 percent; depression by 22 percent; type 2 diabetes by 14 percent; cancer by 6 percent; and dying from cancer (if you already have it) by 37 percent. Taking 7,000 steps a day lowered the risk of falls by 28 percent.
Even modest increases in daily steps had benefits for overall health. Increasing daily step counts from 2,000 a day to 4,000 led to reductions in the risk of many major diseases and improved cognitive health. For some conditions, such as heart disease, health benefits continued to increase beyond 7,000 steps (about three miles), but for most conditions, the benefits tended to level off.
Only a handful of studies looked specifically at the effects of walking on brain health, and the study showed only an association between higher step counts and better health and cannot prove cause and effect. But the findings bolster earlier research showing that exercise has a wealth of benefits for the body, including the brain. Exercise boosts blood flow to the brain, encourages the growth of new brain cells, and lowers levels of inflammation. Increasingly, researchers tie high levels of body-wide inflammation to many chronic ailments of aging, including Alzheimer’s disease.
Aiming for 10,000 steps a day has long been the fitness gold standard for maximal health benefits, but that goal was based more on a marketing campaign than scientific evidence. The authors of the current study conclude: “Although 10,000 steps per day can still be a viable target for those who are more active, 7,000 steps per day is associated with clinically meaningful improvements in health outcomes and might be a more realistic and achievable target for some.” And, as the findings indicate, taking even 4,000 steps a day can have significant benefits for mind and body.
Daily step count is a straightforward way to measure physical activity. Smartphones, watches and activity trackers are an easy way to keep count. If you prefer to swim, dance, garden or ride a bike, of course, any form of physical activity can have benefits for the brain and more.
By ALZinfo.org, The Alzheimer’s Information Site. Reviewed by Eric Schmidt, Ph.D., Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation at The Rockefeller University.
Source: Prof Ding Ding; Binh Nguyen; Tracy Nau, et al: “Daily steps and health outcomes in adults: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis.” The Lancet Public Health, August 2025
