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Daily walking

Walking regularly on most days of the week, whether as deliberate brisk walking sessions or as accumulated everyday steps.

At a glance

  • Evidence: More daily steps are associated with lower all-cause mortality; randomized mortality evidence is unavailable.All-cause mortality · Moderate certainty · Observational association
  • What’s uncertain: Every estimate is observational: the reviews model steps against outcomes in cohort data and cannot show that walking itself caused the lower risk.
  • First step: Attach a walk to an existing routine, such as a meal, a commute or a daily loop at the same time.
  • Before you try it: Build up gradually, particularly if inactive; sudden large increases can cause foot, shin or knee problems. All precautions
Read the full takeaway

Daily-step cohorts

Walking more is one of the better-supported habits in the catalogue, but the evidence has two clearly different halves and they should not be blurred. The observational dose-response literature on device-measured daily steps is large and consistent: a 2025 systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of 57 prospective studies found an inverse association with all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease incidence, cardiovascular disease mortality, cancer mortality, type 2 diabetes, dementia and depressive symptoms, with the steepest gains at the low end of the range and flattening or inflection points roughly around 5,000-7,000 steps per day. That literature is observational and cannot show that walking itself caused the lower risk.

Randomized trials

The randomised half is smaller in scope but genuinely interventional: a meta-analysis of 75 randomised trials found walking reduced depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms versus inactive controls, and a Cochrane review of 73 randomised trials found moderate-certainty evidence that walking lowers systolic blood pressure by about 4 mmHg.

Step targets and comparisons

What the evidence does not support is a specific magic step number: no source we read validates 10,000 steps, and the reviews that modelled 7,000 steps did so as a modelled dose in cohort data rather than as a tested prescription. It also does not support the claim that walking is uniquely better than other activity, because walking lost its advantage over active controls in the depression meta-analysis.

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ExerciseLong-term healthStress & wellbeing20+ min · Easy · Free
Reviewed Oct 3, 2026
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Scientific evidence

What the research shows

Outcome assessments based on research, including its uncertainties and limitations.

All-cause mortality

Finding: Benefit supportedCertainty: Moderatestudies found a benefit from doing this

Evidence basis: observational studies (association, not proof of cause)

More daily steps are associated with lower all-cause mortality; randomized mortality evidence is unavailable.

Population: Adults aged 18 years and older with device-measured daily steps, followed prospectively. Ding 2025 pooled 57 prospective studies from 35 cohorts; Paluch 2022 pooled participant-level data from 47,471 adults in 15 cohorts (3,013 deaths over a median 7.1 years); Rodríguez-Gutiérrez 2024 combined 11 systematic reviews with meta-analyses and 14 cohort studies. Cohorts were predominantly from North America, Europe and Japan, and mean ages in the contributing cohorts were mostly in the older-adult range.

Research details

Summary

This is observational evidence from prospective cohorts with device-measured steps, and it is unusually consistent. A 2025 systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of 57 prospective studies found an inverse non-linear association between daily steps and all-cause mortality, with inflection points around 5,000-7,000 steps per day; compared with 2,000 steps per day, 7,000 steps per day was associated with a 47% lower risk of death (HR 0.53, 95% CI 0.46-0.60, I2 = 36.3%, 14 studies), and GRADE certainty was moderate. An earlier pooled analysis of participant-level data from 15 international cohorts found progressively lower mortality across step quartiles, with the plateau occurring at 6,000-8,000 steps per day in adults aged 60 years and older and 8,000-10,000 steps per day in younger adults. A separate 2024 umbrella review and updated meta-analysis reported a protective threshold at 3,143 steps per day and a pooled hazard ratio of 0.91 (95% CI 0.87-0.95) per 1,000 steps per day. All three syntheses agree that the association is steepest at low step counts and that no source found a threshold at 10,000 steps.

Why this certainty

Rated Moderate. Certainty is not lower because the dose-response association is consistent across 14 studies for all-cause mortality, is graded moderate by the review's own GRADE assessment, and is corroborated by independent syntheses in other populations (Paluch 2022 and 2023, Rodríguez-Gutiérrez 2024) that find the same inverse pattern with the same flattening at higher step counts. It is not Strong because the evidence is entirely observational, because residual confounding is acknowledged by the authors, because several outcomes rest on two to four studies, and because no randomised trial has tested a step target against mortality. The GRADE ratings the review itself assigns are recorded per outcome in the effect estimate rather than being raised by corroboration.

Limitations

Every estimate is observational: the reviews model steps against outcomes in cohort data and cannot show that walking itself caused the lower risk. Steps were device-measured in the included studies, which is a strength relative to self-report, but device wear time, and therefore the days on which a participant is counted at all, is not random and tends to be lower in people who are unwell. Residual confounding by income, occupation, illness and overall activity pattern is stated by the authors as a limitation, the number of studies is small for several outcomes (two to four for cancer incidence, dementia, type 2 diabetes and falls), heterogeneity is substantial for cardiovascular disease mortality (I2 = 78.2%) and cancer incidence (I2 = 73.7%), and the inflection points around 5,000-7,000 steps are modelled features of a dose-response curve rather than tested thresholds. A correction notice exists for this review; it corrects supplementary table 8 of the appendix, whose pre-correction contents are not publicly retrievable, and it does not name any estimate used here - every pooled hazard ratio in this entry was checked against the article's abstract and matches.

Effect estimate

Ding 2025: 7,000 versus 2,000 steps/day, all-cause mortality HR 0.53 (95% CI 0.46-0.60; I2 = 36.3%; 14 studies), GRADE moderate, inflection point around 5,000-7,000 steps/day; Paluch 2022: versus the lowest step quartile (median 3,553 steps/day), adjusted HR 0.60 (95% CI 0.51-0.71) for quartile 2 (median 5,801), 0.55 (95% CI 0.49-0.62) for quartile 3 (median 7,842) and 0.47 (95% CI 0.39-0.57) for quartile 4 (median 10,901); Rodríguez-Gutiérrez 2024: pooled HR 0.91 (95% CI 0.87-0.95) per 1,000 steps/day, protective threshold 3,143 steps/day, highly active category (>12,500 steps/day) HR 0.35 (95% CI 0.29-0.42).

Sources for this outcome:

Depressive and anxiety symptoms

Finding: Benefit supportedCertainty: Moderatestudies found a benefit from doing this

Evidence basis: randomised trials

Walking programs reduce depressive and anxiety symptoms versus inactive controls.

Population: Adults, with predominantly middle-aged and older women. The trial meta-analysis included 75 randomised trials with 8,636 participants, including 5 trials in people with depression and one in adolescents; the step-based cohort synthesis covered 3 studies contributing to the depressive symptom estimate; a separate meta-analysis of 33 observational studies covered 96,173 adults aged 18 and older (mean ages 18.6 to 91.2 years), of which 27 were cross-sectional and 6 longitudinal; and a 2-year cohort followed 285 community-dwelling adults aged 65 and older in Taiwan.

Research details

Summary

Two different designs point the same way but they measure different things. In randomised trials, a systematic review and meta-analysis of 75 randomised controlled trials with 8,636 participants found walking significantly reduced depressive symptoms (44 trials, SMD -0.591, 95% CI -0.778 to -0.403) and anxiety symptoms (26 trials, SMD -0.446, 95% CI -0.628 to -0.265) compared with inactive controls, with benefit across frequency, duration, location and group or individual format subgroups, and larger effects in people who were depressed at baseline (5 trials, SMD -1.863). In prospective cohorts, the 2025 dose-response meta-analysis of device-measured steps found an inverse linear association with depressive symptoms, with 7,000 versus 2,000 steps per day associated with a 22% lower risk (HR 0.78, 95% CI 0.73-0.83, 3 studies, moderate GRADE certainty). One important counterweight inside the trial evidence: when walking was compared with active controls rather than inactive ones, the difference was no longer statistically significant (17 trials, SMD -0.126, 95% CI -0.343 to 0.092), so the benefit is not clearly specific to walking as opposed to activity in general, and the random-effects estimate versus inactive controls carried substantial heterogeneity (I2 = 84.8%).

Why this certainty

Rated Moderate: a large body of randomised trials with a clear pooled effect versus inactive controls is the strongest design available for a symptom outcome, and the cohort synthesis agrees in direction with moderate GRADE certainty for the step-based estimate. It is not Strong because walking did not outperform active controls in the same meta-analysis, so part of the effect is plausibly attributable to activity or attention rather than walking specifically; between-trial heterogeneity is high; the cohorts are dominated by cross-sectional designs; and no evidence shows that a walking habit prevents clinical depression over the long term.

Limitations

The randomised evidence and the step-count evidence are not interchangeable. The trials randomised walking programmes, mostly short and mostly versus inactive controls, and walking versus active controls was non-significant, so the walking-specific effect is uncertain; heterogeneity was high (I2 = 84.8% for depressive symptoms, 81.1% for anxiety) and the authors noted that more evidence on low-intensity walking is needed. The step-count evidence is entirely observational: of 33 studies in the depression meta-analysis, 27 were cross-sectional, so the direction of association cannot be established, and the prospective pooled estimate drew on only 3 prospective cohorts. The older-adult cohort used the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale in 285 people from one Taiwanese community. Depressive symptoms and incident clinical depression are also different outcomes, and most trials measured symptoms over weeks to months rather than depression incidence over years.

Effect estimate

Xu 2024 (walking versus inactive controls): depressive symptoms SMD -0.591 (95% CI -0.778 to -0.403; I2 = 84.8%; 44 RCTs); anxiety symptoms SMD -0.446 (95% CI -0.628 to -0.265; I2 = 81.1%; 26 RCTs); depressive symptoms in participants who were depressed SMD -1.863 (95% CI -2.764 to -0.962; 5 RCTs) versus -0.442 (95% CI -0.604 to -0.280; 39 RCTs) in those who were not (P = .002 for the difference); walking versus active controls, depressive symptoms SMD -0.126 (95% CI -0.343 to 0.092; P = .26; 17 RCTs) and anxiety symptoms SMD -0.053 (95% CI -0.311 to 0.206; P = .69; 14 RCTs). Ding 2025: depressive symptoms, 7,000 versus 2,000 steps/day HR 0.78 (95% CI 0.73-0.83; I2 = 36.2%; 3 studies), inverse linear association, GRADE moderate. Bizzozero-Peroni 2024: 7,000 or more versus fewer than 7,000 steps/day, depression RR 0.69 (95% CI 0.62-0.77); per 1,000 steps/day RR 0.91 (95% CI 0.87-0.94); versus fewer than 5,000 steps/day, cross-sectional SMD -0.26 (95% CI -0.38 to -0.14) for 10,000 or more steps/day, -0.27 (95% CI -0.43 to -0.11) for 7,500-9,999 and -0.17 (95% CI -0.30 to -0.04) for 5,000-7,499. Hsueh 2021: per 1,000 steps/day, rate ratio 0.95 (95% CI 0.92-0.98); 3,500-6,999 steps/day RR 0.84 (95% CI 0.70-0.99); 7,000 or more steps/day RR 0.71 (95% CI 0.55-0.92).

Sources for this outcome:

Blood pressure

Finding: Benefit supportedCertainty: Moderatestudies found a benefit from doing this

Evidence basis: randomised trials

Walking programs modestly lower blood pressure in randomized trials.

Population: Adults aged 16 to 84 years, roughly 1.5 times as many females as males, across 22 countries in the Cochrane review; participants were a mix of people with hypertension and people without it, since the review included any walking intervention trial reporting blood pressure. The Bayesian dose-response meta-analysis was restricted to 1,493 patients with diagnosed hypertension.

Research details

Summary

This outcome rests on randomised trials rather than step counts. A Cochrane review of 73 randomised trials with 5,763 participants found moderate-certainty evidence that walking reduces systolic blood pressure by about 4 mmHg (MD -4.11 mmHg, 95% CI -5.22 to -3.01; 73 studies, n = 5,060) and low-certainty evidence that it reduces diastolic blood pressure (MD -1.79 mmHg, 95% CI -2.51 to -1.07; 69 studies, n = 4,711) and resting heart rate (MD -2.76 bpm, 95% CI -4.57 to -0.95; 26 studies). The average intervention lasted 15 weeks, involved 153 minutes of walking per week, and was mostly moderate intensity. A more recent Bayesian dose-response meta-analysis of 17 randomised trials in 1,493 patients with hypertension reported much larger pooled effects, with systolic blood pressure Hedges' g = -0.48 and diastolic g = -0.51, and a U-shaped dose-response for systolic pressure with the largest modelled effect at about 460 MET-minutes per week and a largest modelled diastolic effect at about 620 MET-minutes per week. The two syntheses disagree substantially in magnitude, and the Cochrane estimate is the more conservative and better-established one.

Why this certainty

Rated Moderate: the Cochrane review provides moderate-certainty randomised evidence for systolic blood pressure across 73 trials with narrow confidence intervals, which is the strongest design for this outcome, and an independent randomised synthesis agrees in direction. It is not Strong because the certainty for diastolic pressure and heart rate is low, all trials are unblinded by necessity, many were at risk of bias, the pooled effect is modest at roughly 4 mmHg systolic, and the single most recent synthesis reports an unexplained five-fold larger effect with credible intervals that are too narrow to be credible.

Limitations

The Cochrane reviewers found that many included trials were at risk of selection bias and performance bias, and no walking trial can blind participants to their allocation, so expectation effects are unavoidable for a self-reported or measurement-based outcome like blood pressure. Diastolic pressure and heart rate findings were graded low certainty. The Bayesian meta-analysis reported implausibly narrow 95% credible intervals around its pooled effects (for example g = -0.48, 95% CrI -0.54 to -0.43 across 17 trials with 1,493 patients), which suggests its uncertainty is understated, and it drew on Chinese-language databases with no evidence that language or origin of the trials was examined as a source of heterogeneity. Its recommended weekly dose of 460-620 MET-minutes is a modelled optimum from a U-shaped curve rather than a tested head-to-head dose, and its authors recommended a regimen of four sessions per week of up to 40 minutes for at least 12 weeks. Blood pressure effects also depend heavily on baseline pressure, so the hypertensive-trial estimate should not be transferred to normotensive walkers.

Effect estimate

Lee 2021 (Cochrane): walking versus non-intervention control, systolic blood pressure MD -4.11 mmHg (95% CI -5.22 to -3.01; 73 studies, n = 5,060), moderate-certainty evidence; diastolic blood pressure MD -1.79 mmHg (95% CI -2.51 to -1.07; 69 studies, n = 4,711), low-certainty evidence; heart rate MD -2.76 bpm (95% CI -4.57 to -0.95; 26 studies), low-certainty evidence. Wang 2026: 17 RCTs, 1,493 hypertensive patients, systolic blood pressure Hedges' g = -0.48 (95% CrI -0.54 to -0.43) and diastolic g = -0.51 (95% CrI -0.58 to -0.44); systolic U-shaped dose-response with optimum at approximately 460 MET-min/week (g = -1.00, 95% CrI -1.54 to -0.46) and diastolic optimum at approximately 620 MET-min/week (g = -0.55, 95% CrI -1.06 to -0.03).

Sources for this outcome:

Cardiovascular disease incidence

Finding: Benefit supportedCertainty: Moderatestudies found a benefit from doing this

Evidence basis: observational studies (association, not proof of cause)

More daily steps are associated with lower cardiovascular disease incidence.

Population: Adults with device-measured steps followed for cardiovascular events. Paluch 2023 pooled 20,152 adults from eight prospective studies (mean age 63.2 years, 52% women, mean follow-up 6.2 years, 1,523 cardiovascular events); Ding 2025 pooled six and three prospective studies for cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality respectively, across 24 cohorts contributing to its meta-analyses overall.

Research details

Summary

Device-measured daily steps are associated with lower cardiovascular disease incidence in prospective cohorts, with the same non-linear shape seen for mortality. In the 2025 dose-response meta-analysis, 7,000 versus 2,000 steps per day was associated with a 25% lower risk of cardiovascular disease incidence (HR 0.75, 95% CI 0.67-0.85, I2 = 38.3%, six studies) and a 47% lower risk of cardiovascular disease mortality (HR 0.53, 95% CI 0.37-0.77, I2 = 78.2%, three studies), with an inflection point around 5,000-7,000 steps per day and GRADE certainty rated moderate for incidence and low for mortality. A harmonised participant-level meta-analysis of eight prospective studies with device-measured steps found the association differed by age: in adults aged 60 years and older the hazard ratio fell progressively to 0.51 (95% CI 0.41-0.63) in the highest step quartile, whereas in adults younger than 60 years the estimates were not statistically significant and clustered near the null, with restricted cubic splines showing a clear non-linear association only in the older group.

Why this certainty

Rated Moderate for cardiovascular disease incidence: two independent prospective syntheses agree on direction and on a non-linear dose-response, the incidence estimate draws on six studies with moderate heterogeneity and was graded moderate certainty by its authors, and the participant-level harmonised analysis produced a graded quartile pattern in older adults. It is not Strong because the evidence is observational, the number of contributing studies is small, the younger-adult estimates were null, and the cardiovascular mortality component was graded low certainty with substantial heterogeneity.

Limitations

Observational only, so confounding and reverse causation remain; people who develop cardiovascular disease may reduce their walking before diagnosis. Cardiovascular events were counted from study-specific definitions of fatal and nonfatal coronary heart disease, stroke and heart failure, and the number of contributing studies is small for this outcome, particularly the three studies behind the cardiovascular mortality estimate, where heterogeneity was high (I2 = 78.2%) and GRADE certainty low. Ding 2025 performed no age-specific analysis, and the age split that Paluch 2023 did perform means the headline benefit is concentrated in older adults, with null estimates in younger adults that carried wide confidence intervals. A correction notice was published for Ding 2025 after the abstract numbers used here, so the pooled values should be re-checked against the corrected version.

Effect estimate

Ding 2025: 7,000 versus 2,000 steps/day, cardiovascular disease incidence HR 0.75 (95% CI 0.67-0.85; I2 = 38.3%; six studies), GRADE moderate, inflection point around 5,000-7,000 steps/day; cardiovascular disease mortality HR 0.53 (95% CI 0.37-0.77; I2 = 78.2%; three studies), GRADE low. Paluch 2023: versus the lowest step quartile, adults aged 60 years and older HR 0.80 (95% CI 0.69-0.93) for quartile 2, 0.62 (95% CI 0.52-0.74) for quartile 3 and 0.51 (95% CI 0.41-0.63) for quartile 4; adults younger than 60 years HR 0.79 (95% CI 0.46-1.35), 0.90 (95% CI 0.64-1.25) and 0.95 (95% CI 0.61-1.48) for quartiles 2, 3 and 4.

Sources for this outcome:

What people say

Who discusses this?

Public statements, with positions specific to each source and topic. These views do not determine the scientific evidence assessment.

What the research shows ↑

Practical steps and precautions

How to try it

  1. Anchor walking to an existing routine rather than to spare time, for example a fixed walk straight after a meal, a commute leg on foot, or a daily loop at the same hour; the trials that showed benefit used scheduled sessions, mostly at home or in the community.
  2. Build volume gradually from your current baseline rather than jumping to a headline number; the dose-response curves rise steeply at the low end, so the first few thousand steps carry the largest modelled difference in risk.
  3. If you want a concrete daily figure, treat 7,000 steps per day as an editorial starting point only: it is the dose the 2025 systematic review modelled against 2,000 steps, not a validated threshold and not a number any source we read tested as a prescription. Treat the WHO physical activity guideline of 150-300 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week as a published reference point from WHO, not as a target derived from this record. A correction notice for that review corrects supplementary table 8 of its appendix only and names no estimate used here; every pooled hazard ratio on this card was checked against the article's own abstract and matches it.
  4. Choose a brisk pace for at least part of the walk where you can, since the randomised blood pressure trials used moderate to brisk intensities, and add a longer walk at the weekend if weekdays are short. Loaded walking is an optional variation: begin with a light, comfortable load on an easy route and progress only if comfortable. The walking evidence here does not establish an additional longevity benefit from carrying weight or buying a particular brand.

Precautions

  • Build up gradually, particularly if you are currently inactive: sudden large increases in walking volume are a common trigger for foot, shin and knee complaints, and one analysis inside an umbrella review reported more meniscal pathology in people exceeding 10,000 steps per day who did not have knee osteoarthritis.
  • In the Cochrane review of 73 walking trials, only 21 trials reported adverse events at all; of those, 16 reported none and five reported eight events, with knee injury the most frequent. Minor musculoskeletal problems are therefore the main documented risk, but reporting was sparse.
  • If you have known cardiovascular disease, uncontrolled hypertension, or symptoms such as chest pain, breathlessness or dizziness on exertion, get clinical advice before starting or substantially increasing a walking programme.
  • People at high risk of falls should not assume that walking alone is sufficient protection; the evidence that more steps is associated with fewer falls is observational and was graded very low certainty.

References

Daily steps and health outcomes in adults: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis

Ding D, Nguyen B, Nau T, Luo M, Del Pozo Cruz B, Dempsey PC, Munn Z, Jefferis BJ, Sherrington C, Calleja EA, Hau Chong K, Davis R, Francois ME, Tiedemann A, Biddle SJH, Okely A, Bauman A, Ekelund U, Clare P, Owen K · The Lancet Public Health · 2025

Systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies with device-measured steps, with random-effects pooling, Newcastle-Ottawa risk of bias assessment and GRADE certainty rating (PROSPERO CRD42024529706). The article is gold open access; the version of record and the 113-page appendix were retrieved in this pass, the latter from the University of Leicester open repository (figshare article 29916569) because the article has no PMC deposit and the publisher's own links are not machine-readable. Correction notice, retrieved verbatim and recorded here rather than stored as a fact because it is a separate document from the article and does not appear in the article's abstract: "In the appendix (p 82), supplementary table 8 has been corrected. The appendix of this Article has been corrected as of Aug 27, 2025." (Lancet Public Health 2025;10(9):e731, DOI 10.1016/S2468-2667(25)00199-9, PMID 40883040.) The notice names no other table, figure, estimate or section, and is signed by no author. Supplementary table 8, read in the retrieved appendix at printed page 82, is a post-hoc analysis of 1,000-step increments from 8,000 to 12,000 steps per day modelled against a 7,000 steps per day reference - not the 2,000 steps per day reference used in the article's main dose-response analysis. No before-correction copy of that table is publicly retrievable, so which cells changed cannot be determined from the documents available, and the notice's silence about the abstract is not proof that the abstract was unchanged.Verified from full text
Open original source

Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts

Paluch AE, Bajpai S, Bassett DR, Carnethon MR, Ekelund U, Evenson KR, Galuska DA, Jefferis BJ, Kraus WE, Lee IM, Matthews CE, Omura JD, Patel AV, Pieper CF, Rees-Punia E, Dallmeier D, Klenk J, Whincup PH, Dooley EE, Pettee Gabriel K, Palta P, Pompeii LA, Chernofsky A, Larson MG, Vasan RS, Spartano N, Ballin M, Nordström P, Nordström A, Anderssen SA, Hansen BH, Cochrane JA, Dwyer T, Wang J, Ferrucci L, Liu F, Schrack J, Urbanek J, Saint-Maurice PF, Yamamoto N, Yoshitake Y, Newton RL, Yang S, Shiroma EJ, Fulton JE, Steps for Health Collaborative · The Lancet Public Health · 2022

Meta-analysis of harmonised individual participant data from 15 international prospective cohorts with device-measured steps, using Cox proportional hazards models and inverse-variance weighted random effectsVerified from abstract
Open original source

Daily steps and all-cause mortality: An umbrella review and meta-analysis

Rodríguez-Gutiérrez E, Torres-Costoso A, Del Pozo Cruz B, de Arenas-Arroyo SN, Pascual-Morena C, Bizzozero-Peroni B, Martínez-Vizcaíno V · Preventive Medicine · 2024

Umbrella review of systematic reviews with meta-analyses plus an updated random-effects meta-analysis of prospective cohort studiesVerified from abstract
Open original source

The Effect of Walking on Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Xu Z, Zheng X, Ding H, Zhang D, Cheung PM, Yang Z, Tam KW, Zhou W, Chan DC, Wang W, Wong SY · JMIR Public Health and Surveillance · 2024

Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials with random-effects pooling and Cochrane Risk of Bias assessmentVerified from abstract
Open original source

Daily Step Count and Depression in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Bizzozero-Peroni B, Díaz-Goñi V, Jiménez-López E, Rodríguez-Gutiérrez E, Sequí-Domínguez I, Núñez de Arenas-Arroyo S, López-Gil JF, Martínez-Vizcaíno V, Mesas AE · JAMA Network Open · 2024

Systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies using the Sidik-Jonkman random-effects method, with two independent reviewers extracting dataVerified from abstract
Open original source

A dose response relationship between accelerometer assessed daily steps and depressive symptoms in older adults: a two-year cohort study

Hsueh MC, Stubbs B, Lai YJ, Sun CK, Chen LJ, Ku PW · Age and Ageing · 2021

Two-year prospective community cohort study with accelerometer-measured steps and negative binomial regression, adjusted for baseline depressive symptoms and covariatesVerified from abstract
Open original source

Walking for hypertension

Lee LL, Mulvaney CA, Wong YKY, Chan ES, Watson MC, Lin HH · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · 2021

Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials with GRADE certainty rating and subgroup and sensitivity analysesVerified from abstract
Open original source

The optimal dose of brisk walking for improving blood pressure in hypertensive patients: a systematic review and bayesian meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Wang J, Ma L, Lin Q, Yin Y · PeerJ · 2026

Systematic review and Bayesian hierarchical random-effects meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials with dose-response modelling and Cochrane RoB 2 risk of bias assessmentVerified from abstract
Open original source

Prospective Association of Daily Steps With Cardiovascular Disease: A Harmonized Meta-Analysis

Paluch AE, Bajpai S, Ballin M, Bassett DR, Buford TW, Carnethon MR, Chernofsky A, Dooley EE, Ekelund U, Evenson KR, Galuska DA, Jefferis BJ, Kong L, Kraus WE, Larson MG, Lee IM, Matthews CE, Newton RL, Nordström A, Nordström P, Palta P, Patel AV, Pettee Gabriel K, Pieper CF, Pompeii L, Rees-Punia E, Spartano NL, Vasan RS, Whincup PH, Yang S, Fulton JE, Steps for Health Collaborative · Circulation · 2023

Harmonised meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies with device-measured steps, using study-specific step quartiles, Cox proportional hazards models and inverse-variance weighted random effectsVerified from abstract
Open original source

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Editorial history and review method

Revision 7 · Approved for publication · Codex (publication approval explicitly authorized by site owner; category migration)

Prepared and checked with AI. Publication approval does not imply independent expert review. Request a correction.

Audit correction pass (group 7). No number changed — the audit verified every pooled estimate in this entry against Ding 2025, Paluch 2022, Rodríguez-Gutiérrez 2024, Xu 2024, Bizzozero-Peroni 2024, Hsueh 2021, Lee 2021, Wang 2026 and Paluch 2023 and found none wrong. One editorial addition: implementation step 3 now states that a correction notice exists for the Ding 2025 systematic review (DOI 10.1016/S2468-2667(25)00199-9, Lancet Public Health 2025;10(9):e731) and that its pooled hazard ratios are pending re-check against the corrected version, matching the caveat already recorded in the all-cause-mortality and cardiovascular-disease-incidence limitations. A second reviewer must re-check: (1) that a human obtains the correction notice text, which could not be retrieved from Europe PMC, PubMed or Crossref, and re-checks the ten Ding 2025 pooled estimates, including the 'per 1000 steps/day increments' unit qualifier for the depressive-symptom estimate; and (2) that the primary-trial overlap between lee-2021 and wang-2026-daily-walking, and between bizzozero-peroni-2024 and ding-2025, is quantified before the entry is approved. Ding 2025 correction notice resolved. The notice was retrieved and is quoted verbatim in the source record: it corrects supplementary table 8 in the appendix and says nothing about any other table, figure, estimate or section. The appendix itself was retrieved from the University of Leicester open repository and supplementary table 8 is a post-hoc 1,000-step-increment analysis using 7,000 steps/day - not 2,000 - as its reference. All nine pooled hazard ratios this entry uses are the article's own abstract figures and were checked against the retrieved abstract: every one matches. What cannot be established is which cells of table 8 changed, because no pre-correction copy is publicly retrievable; the notice's silence about the abstract is not proof that the abstract was unchanged, and the source record says so. The source's access claim was also corrected: the article is gold open access and both the version of record and the full appendix are openly downloadable, so recording it as abstract-only understated the work done. Net effect on this entry: the ten pooled estimates move from 'unresolved' to 'verified against the abstract, with one supplementary table's content unverifiable before and after'. Ding 2025 correction notice resolved. October 3 training follow-up: Included optional, progressive loaded walking and explicitly separated it from the evidence for walking and equipment marketing. Independent editorial approval remains pending. Publication release 2026-10-04: site owner authorized a bounded AI audit and release of this exact revision. See docs/release-audit-2026-10-04.md for source-check findings and limits. No independent health-professional or peer review is claimed. Category migration 2026-10-04: removed the separate goals field; categories: Exercise, Long-term health → Exercise, Long-term health, Stress & wellbeing. Research assessments, sources, guidance, precautions, and evidence review dates are unchanged. This revision awaits publication approval; no new evidence review is claimed. Publication approval 2026-10-04: site owner explicitly accepted all current category-migration revisions for deployment and requested that remaining limitations be retained in docs/content-review-backlog.md. Approval applies to this exact content revision. No new evidence review, independent expert review, or clinical validation is claimed; existing precautions and disclosures remain in effect.