At least 10 minutes of walking per day cuts mortality in older octogenarians
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Low levels of physical activity, such as 10 minutes of walking per day, may reduce all-cause mortality in those aged 85 years or more compared with those who do not walk at all, a speaker reported.
Results were similar for CV mortality, with participants who walked at least 1 hour per week experiencing lower risk compared with participants who do not walk at all, according to data presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress.
“Current guidelines recommend moderate-to-vigorous physical activity for health benefit in all adults. Older adults are less likely to meet activity recommendations,” Moo-Nyun Jin, MD, of the division of cardiology at Inje University College of Medicine in Seoul, Republic of Korea, said during a presentation. “Walking is a simple and easy exercise for the ‘oldest old’; however, literature on the association between walking and mortality in adults aged 85 and older is lacking.”
For this study, researchers evaluated 7,047 survey participants aged 85 years or older who completed self-administered questionnaires on physical activity. Participants self-reported how many times per week they walked for at least 30 minutes.
Participants were classified into one of five groups based on time spent walking: no walking (57.5%); walking less than 1 hour (8.5%); walking 1 to 2 hours (12%); walking 2 to 3 hours (8.7%); and walking more than 3 hours (13.3%).
Despite just 7.6% of participants aged 85 years or more achieving the guideline-recommended level of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, those who walked at least 1 hour per week had lower risk for all-cause death compared with inactive participants (HR = 0.5; 95% CI, 0.4-0.61).
Additionally, participants who walked at least 1 hour per week also experienced lower relative risk for CV mortality compared with less active individuals (HR = 0.46; 95% CI, 0.3-0.7).
“Walking 1 hour every week might be of benefit for all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in [people] aged 85 years, even without moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity,” Jin said during the presentation.
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Jin M, et al. Abstract 85643. Presented at: European Society of Cardiology Congress; Aug. 26-29, 2022; Barcelona, Spain (hybrid meeting).
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