Walk Faster, Live Longer

Fitness

If you want to add a few extra years to your life, try picking up the pace. That’s the advice of an international team of researchers who found that people’s walking speed is linked to their risk of dying early from heart disease and other causes. The scientists analyzed data provided by more than 50,000 Britons, who reported their typical walking speed (slow, average, fairly brisk, or fast) and other health metrics for nine years—during which time 3,617 of the respondents died. Compared with slowpokes, fast and average walkers had roughly a 20 percent lower risk of premature death, and a similar reduction in risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, reports MarketWatch.com. Upping the pace was even more beneficial for older walkers. Average-pace walkers ages 60 and over experienced a 46 percent reduction in risk of death from heart disease, and fast-pace walkers a 53 percent drop. To get the maximum health benefit, study author Emmanuel Stamatakis recommends, walk “at a pace that makes you slightly out of breath or sweaty when sustained.”