Older women who walk 4,000 steps a day once or twice a week have a 26% lower risk of death (40% if it is three days) and a 27% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, compared to those who do not reach this number of steps on any day.
In fact, the study, conducted by researchers at Mass General Brigham (a network of physicians and non-profit hospitals in Boston, USA), points out that it is the number of steps (4,000), not the number of days, that benefits women’s cardiovascular health.
Older women should walk 4,000 steps a day
Four thousand steps a day improve health and reduce risk of death in older women #Cooperativa90 https://t.co/OMXJqXRyBX pic.twitter.com/j2qpJ3wQin
– Cooperativa (@Cooperativa) October 22, 2025
Details of the research were published Wednesday in The British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Engaging in physical activity throughout life is important for improving healthy life expectancy, but it is not entirely clear how much exercise to do as we age to achieve results.
Taking walking as a physical activity, the authors wanted to determine how many steps are necessary to obtain appreciable health benefits.
To do so, they examined 13,547 older women with an average age of 71 years, in whom they compared the number of steps they took in a week with mortality and cardiovascular disease rates.
The women wore activity trackers between 2011 and 2015 for one week at a time and all of them were healthy at the start of the study.
At the end of 2024, after 11 years of follow-up, 1,765 women (13%) died and 781 (5%) developed cardiovascular disease.
During the study, participants were ordered according to the number of days per week on which they reached step thresholds of 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 or 7,000.
Those who achieved 4,000 steps one or two days a week had a 26% lower risk of mortality and a 27% lower risk of cardiovascular disease compared with those who did not take 4,000 steps on any day.
In addition, achieving 4,000 steps three or more days a week further reduced the risk of mortality, to 40%.
In women who reached the higher step thresholds, the risk of cardiovascular disease stabilized.
The study did not include dietary patterns
Older women who walk 4,000 steps a day once or twice a week have a 26% lower risk of death and a 27% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, says a study from Mass General Brigham.https://t.co/Sw05E1EVrH
– EFE News (@EFEnoticias) October 21, 2025
However, since this is an observational study, the authors caution that no firm conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn.
They also point out that they only evaluated the physical activity of the participants during one week, and that they lacked information on dietary patterns.
However, they stress that the results showed that performing an amount equal to or greater than 4,000 steps per day was associated with less mortality, and that there is no ‘best’ or ‘most appropriate’ pattern for taking steps (at least among older women).
In future research, the authors want to explore whether these effects hold in populations beyond older, American, mostly white women.
“I hope our findings will encourage the inclusion of step count metrics in physical activity guidelines, including the upcoming 2028 U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines,” says the study’s lead author, Rikuta Hamaya, of Mass General Brigham’s Department of Medicine.
If we can promote taking at least 4,000 steps once a week in older women, we could reduce mortality and the risk of cardiovascular disease nationwide
Rikuta Hamaya
“In countries like the United States, technological advances have meant that we don’t move around much, and older individuals are among the least active,” laments co-lead author Min Lee, an epidemiologist at Mass General Brigham.
“Given today’s low step counts, it is increasingly important to determine the minimum amount of physical activity required to improve health outcomes, so that we can provide realistic and achievable goals for the public,” she concludes.
With information from EFE