The association between fast walking and lower mortality was independent of leisure-time physical activity, with no significant interaction across activity strata, according to findings from the Southern Community Cohort Study.
“Fast walking was independently associated with reduced mortality, regardless of the levels of LTPA [leisure-time physical activity] and engaging in just 15 minutes of fast walking per day resulted in a substantial reduction in the risk of death,” noted lead researcher Lili Liu, MPH, Division of Epidemiology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, and colleagues.
Researchers examined whether daily walking pace and duration were associated with mortality among a large, racially and socioeconomically diverse US cohort. The study included 79,856 adults aged 40 to 79 years from 12 southeastern states, recruited from 2002 to 2009. Participants who died within 2 years of baseline (n=1,867) or had missing walking data (n=3,072) were excluded.
Baseline questionnaires assessed average daily minutes of slow walking (e.g., moving around, walking at work) and fast walking (e.g., brisk walking, climbing stairs), demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, lifestyle factors, body mass index (BMI), and comorbidities. Mortality through December 31, 2022, was identified via National Death Index records.
Cox models, using follow-up time as the scale, estimated hazard ratios (HRs) for all-cause and cause-specific mortality. Models were adjusted for enrollment source, age, sex, race, education, marital status, income, employment, insurance, smoking, alcohol, diet quality, LTPA, sedentary time, BMI, and comorbidity burden; with mutual adjustment for slow and fast walking. Cause-specific mortality was analyzed with subdistribution hazard modeling to account for competing events. Missing covariates (0.3%–5.8%) were imputed using chained equations.
Over a median 16.7 years (interquartile range, 2–20.8), 26,862 deaths occurred: cardiovascular disease, n=13,486; cancer, n=6,378; other diseases, n=5,408; external causes, n=1,590. Slow walking showed no clear association with all-cause mortality after multivariable adjustment (> 3 hours/day versus none: HR, 0.96).
Associations were strongest for cardiovascular disease mortality (> 60 minutes fast walking versus none: HR, 0.80), particularly for ischemic heart disease and heart failure.
The researchers report no conflicts of interest.