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Getting your steps is beneficial to your health, but it can also help you not be affected by damage later, new studies have found.
Walking 100 minutes a day was associated with a 23% reduced risk of chronic lower back pain, according to a study published on Friday at Jama Network Open.
“This is an important finding, as walking is a simple, low cost and affordable activity that can be widely promoted to reduce the weight of pain in the lower back,” says the leading study, the leader Rayane Hadad, a doctoral candidate at the Department of Public Health and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Approximately 600 million people worldwide have pain in the lower back, which is considered a leading cause of disability, said physiotherapist Dr. Natasha’s lives, doctoral research associate of health sciences at the University of Makari in Sydney. She did not participate in the study.
By 2050, the number of people with chronic lower back pain is expected to increase to 843 million, according to the World Health Organization.
However, preventing lower back pain is often overlooked in research and clinical practice, adds the rest.
The results of this latest study show that there is a possibility of using physical activity as prevention. Liais said the study also “suggests that we do not need to complicate our exercises in order to prevent chronic lower back pain.”
Obtaining more steps is associated with a reduced risk of back pain, a new study found. – FG Trade/E+/Getty Images
More steps, less pain
In order to examine the relationship between walking and back pain prevention, the research team analyzes data from more than 11,000 participants aged 20 and more than Trøndelag Health or hunting, studied in Norway.
Between 2017 and 2019, Hunt researchers asked the survey participants to wear accelerometers for seven days to track their walking models. The hunting team then followed from 2021 and 2023 and asked if the participants had experienced back pain, according to the new study.
People were divided into four groups: those who walked less than 78 minutes a day, 78 to 100 minutes, 101 to 124 minutes and more than 125 minutes.
The results show that with the increase in the amount of daily walking, the risk of chronic lower back pain decreases, and preliminary evidence reveals that moderate or fast walking is more protected than the slow pace, said the rest.
There are reasons to trust the results of the study, including the large sample size and the use of accelerometers, instead of taking into account their own levels of physical activity, she added.
However, walking data was shot in just one week, which may not reflect people’s models for a month or a year, Ras said.
The study is also observant, which means that although it shows associations, researchers cannot say for sure that walking has caused a reduced risk of lower back pain.
Getting more walking
Not only lower back pain is a leading cause of damage – it is also expensive. On average, people spend more than $ 30,000 on the expenses associated with back pain in the five years after the first diagnosis, according to April 2024 study.
Easy, cheap changes that prevent chronic lower back pain can make a big change, Hadad said.
The study was not able to cope if walking 100 minutes was there more, less, or the same effect as the accumulation of the same time for short outbursts, the resorts said.
But in most cases, unless there is a basic medical condition, every amount of walking is better than no one, he said.
“Start with short walking sessions, or by planning specific walks, or finding small ways to integrate a short walk into your daily routine,” she said.
She loves to take up stairs instead of the elevator or go to a cafe a little longer than her home, he said.
“The key is to gradually increase your walking in a sustainable and enjoyable way,” she said in an email. “It may also be helpful to have a friend, partner or colleague to join you for walks to motivate and answer.”
You can add walking as a way to spend time with friends in addition to dinner and drinks, CNN fitness associate Dana Santas, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and trainer of the mind of professional sports, said in a previous article.
And if you want to move around by getting a few additional steps and you will get more physical activity, you can still start small and build your way up, Santas said. Some workouts can even be completed from the comfort of your sofa while watching an episode of your favorite TV show, she added.
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