What Can Walking Do For You?

Regular walks can help your weight and memory. In one study, researchers tracked older adults and found that those who walked six to nine miles a week reduced their risk of memory problems by 50 percent. But the habit’s most important role might be in boosting your overall health span, “which means not just living longer but adding more years of living independently as you age,” notes Mark Cucuzzella, a professor of family medicine at West Virginia University Department of Family Medicine. In his opinion, viewing walking only in terms of how many calories it burns sells the exercise short, given its dramatic benefits for key systems like your brain, heart and muscles. And research shows that when it comes to walking and your life span, more is more. A study from the American Cancer Society showed that an hour of walking a day lowered subjects’ risk of death by 30 percent, compared with those who stayed put on the couch.

Yep, keeping up a walking regimen is enough to dramatically reduce your risk of heart disease and some types of cancer. There’s even research  that found walking can influence your survival of breast and colon cancer. In one study, 992 people with stage 3 bowel cancer were assessed twice over an average of seven years. Those who followed exercise recommendations from the American Cancer Society (which could be met with moderate-intensity walking for 30 minutes five times a week) had a 42 percent lower risk of dying and less chance of a recurrence.

Walking can be an important part of controlling blood sugar, and a recent study found the benefits accrue with either one longer walk of moderate intensity or three shorter walks a day. A study looking at type 2 diabetes by the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services showed that adults over 60 who took short walks after every meal lowered blood sugar more effectively and for longer — up to three hours — than they did by performing other types of moderate exercise. The only hitch? You have to lace up after every meal to get the benefit from shorter walks, says the study’s lead author.

A 2013 study using data in the National Runners and Walkers Health Study (a survey of 15,945 walkers and 33,060 runners conducted at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in Berkeley, Calif.) revealed this surprising comparison: Runners reduced their risk of heart disease by about 4.5 percent, but walkers did even better, reducing that risk by more than 9 percent. While runners saw greater health benefits in other areas, the point is that walking holds its own as a heart-healthy option — and you certainly shouldn't balk at walking if you're no longer getting in those regular runs.

The links between walking and preserving brain function just keep coming. One 2011 landmark study showed that simply by walking three days a week for 40 minutes, 65-year-olds could shave off about two years of typical age-related atrophy of the hippocampus. In that study, the group assigned to stretching instead of walking showed slight shrinkage of this region of the brain. And in a more recent study, researchers at New Mexico Highlands University found that the foot’s impact during walking generates pressure waves through the arteries that can increase the supply of blood to the brain, boosting its function. There’s also research out of University of Maryland School of Public Health that found walking four days a week for 12 weeks improved the recall memory of older adults.