Credit score: Journal of Inside Drugs (2025). DOI: 10.1111/joim.20081
A primary pedometer can show adequate for measuring health-promoting bodily exercise, in accordance with a research evaluating pedometers with extra advanced units. Merely counting steps captured a exceptional quantity of details about the individuals’ cardio health and cardiovascular well being.
The paper is printed within the Journal of Inside Drugs.
The overall advice for bodily exercise is to be lively a minimum of at a average depth for a minimum of two-and-a-half hours per week. The best well being features are made by progressing from a very sedentary way of life to some degree of exercise.
Nevertheless, monitoring exercise ranges and well being outcomes is difficult for people and well being care professionals alike. This research investigated how nicely pedometers match the extra superior and established measurements supplied by accelerometers.
Whereas a pedometer solely counts steps, an accelerometer gives info on the entire quantity of bodily exercise, together with the variety of steps, in addition to detailed details about the exercise, equivalent to motion patterns, time of day, depth degree, and extra.
Step knowledge as a foundation
The research encompassed 4,127 folks, aged 50–64 years, whose cardio health was estimated with assistance from a cycle ergometer. Their well being was measured utilizing a mix of waist circumference, blood stress, blood lipids, and insulin sensitivity.
The individuals had been supplied with accelerometers for per week in order that researchers may accumulate step knowledge along with extra superior knowledge. When the step knowledge had been in contrast with the whole accelerometer knowledge, the step rely was discovered to have captured a full 88% of the well being info supplied by the accelerometer measurements.
In response to the researchers, the outcomes exhibit the reliability of step counting as a technique for measuring well being outcomes when linked to particular person cardio health and heart problems danger components, thereby validating using step counting versus accelerometer measurements.
One of many lead researchers behind the research is Jonatan Fridolfsson, bodily therapist and researcher on the Middle for Life-style Intervention on the College of Gothenburg and Sahlgrenska College Hospital.
“The study supports the use of step counting, which is available to most people via their cellphone or activity tracker, as a practical and viable metric for assessing physical activity in relation to health. This can make it easier for both individuals and health care professionals to understand, measure, and improve activity levels in everyday life,” he says.
Quick tempo is helpful
The research additionally exhibits that cardiovascular well being optimization requires brisk strolling at a minimal. Strolling at a standard tempo didn’t produce the identical well being advantages within the research group, which was comprised of middle-aged people with no underlying coronary heart illness.
“This suggests that we need greater emphasis on physical activity of sufficient intensity in public health recommendations,” says Jonatan Fridolfsson.
One other discovering involved cadence when strolling, with 100 steps per minute usually thought of the decrease threshold for adequate depth. Nevertheless, among the many individuals on this research, a minimal cadence of 80 steps per minute was most strongly related to good cardio health and cardiovascular well being.
“The point is that it’s important to adapt the idea of sufficient intensity to the individual. For this particular group, and their daily physical activity, a threshold of 80 steps per minute was more strongly associated with aerobic fitness and cardiovascular health markers.”
The research was performed on the Middle for Life-style Intervention on the College of Gothenburg and Sahlgrenska College Hospital in collaboration with the Middle for Well being and Efficiency (CHP) on the College of Gothenburg.
The outcomes are primarily based on knowledge from the SCAPIS inhabitants research, the most important in Sweden within the area of coronary heart, vascular, and lung illness, encompassing 30,000 randomly chosen Swedes aged 50–64 years who underwent complete well being exams.
Extra info:
Jonatan Fridolfsson et al, Easy step counting captures comparable well being info to advanced accelerometer measurements, Journal of Inside Drugs (2025). DOI: 10.1111/joim.20081
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College of Gothenburg
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Pedometers suffice for measuring health-promoting bodily exercise, finds research (2025, April 3)
retrieved 4 April 2025
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