New Sweet Spot: 7,000 Steps Per Day
- Editor OGN Daily
- Jul 28
- 2 min read
Not nearly as hard to achieve as the much-touted 10,000 count.
You are no doubt aware that you’re meant to take 10,000 steps every day for optimal health, but research indicates that this figure is entirely arbitrary.
The reality is that it originated in a Japanese boardroom in the 1960s. Few people realise but the company Yamasa simply dreamt up the figure as a way of promoting the world’s first step counter ahead of the Tokyo 1964 Olympics. The pedometer's name, Manpo-kei, translates to “10,000 steps meter.”
Be that as it may, all health experts believe that more walking every day is better for you than less, but the debate now comes down to where the line of diminishing returns is. In other words, how many daily steps deliver maximum health benefits before each additional step fails to add exponential improvements. Researchers from the University of Sydney believe they've found the sweet spot: 7,000 steps per day.
Considered the largest and most comprehensive review of information on this topic by the team, the researchers looked at data from 57 studies carried out between 2014 to 2025 in over 10 different countries.
Walking 7,000 daily steps reduced the risk of all-cause health-related mortality by 47 percent – a number that was found to be nearly identical to taking 10,000 steps per day. They also found that the risk of developing dementia dropped by 38 percent with only an additional 7 percent reduction for walking 10,000 steps.
Furthermore, the analysis revealed a 25 percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease occurrence and a 47 percent reduction in associated deaths. 7,000 daily steps had a 37 percent reduction in cancer mortality. There was also a 28 percent lower risk of falls, and a 22 percent lower incidence of depressive symptoms.
“For people who are already active, 10,000 steps a day is great,” said Katherine Owen, co-author and chief analyst of the study from the University of Sydney's School of Public Health. “But beyond 7,000 steps, the extra benefits for most of the health outcomes we looked at were modest.”
