Short walks are good — but longer ones could dramatically impact your heart health, study says

Focusing on taking longer, steadier walks instead of reaching a daily step goal could cut your risk of heart disease by up to two-thirds, new research suggests.

Scientists from the University of Sydney and Spain’s Universidad Europea found that people who walked in uninterrupted 10 to 15-minute periods were far less likely to suffer heart attacks, strokes or die prematurely compared to those whose walking was broken into brief spurts of less than five minutes.

The findings, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, challenge the popular “10,000 steps a day” mantra, showing that quality and consistency matter more than quantity, especially for those who are less active.

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