Researchers from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined 4,840 American adults aged at least 40 in an observational study that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
There are almost 17 million cancer survivors in the US. According to research, a person’s survival and wellness after receiving a cancer diagnosis may depend on their body weight, level of physical activity, diet, and alcohol consumption.
Pedro Saint-Maurice, Ph.D., first author of the study said,” While we knew physical activity is good for you, we didn’t know how many steps per day you need to take to lower your mortality risk or whether stepping at a higher intensity makes a difference. We wanted to investigate this question to provide new insights that could help people better understand the health implications of the step counts they get from fitness trackers and phone apps.”
The study was done with the goal of describing the dose-response relationship between step count, its intensity, and mortality. At baseline between 2003 and 2006, the subjects wore an accelerometer and tracking devices for up to 7 days.
The National Death Index was then used by the researchers to track them through the year 2015. Deaths were recorded through December 2015.
After conducting analyses, they discovered that:
1. Taking 8,000 steps per day was associated with a 51 percent lower risk of mortality from any cause than doing 4,000.
2. Compared to 4,000 steps per day, taking 12,000 steps per day was associated with a risk that was 65% lower.
3. After correcting for the overall number of steps taken each day, there was no statistically significant correlation between step intensity and all-cause mortality.
The rapidly growing body of research addressing the advantages of physical activity for cancer survivors is significantly expanded by this study.
The risk of dying from cancer and other causes may be increased if cancer survivors spend the majority of their days sitting down or engage in little to no physical activity.
Parvathy Sukumaran 
