People with arthritis of the knee often find walking difficult – but 6,000 steps a day can make a massive difference to their health, researchers reported yesterday.
10,000 steps is often stated as a good goal for general health while in normal life people are said to take 3,000 to 4,000 steps a day.
Researchers in the latest study found that 6,000 steps was a key threshold for people with osteoarthritis of the knee.
The findings, reported in the journal Arthritis Care & Research, come from a study of some 1,788 patients.
Those who took less than 6,000 steps a day tended to develop "functional limitation," they report.
Researcher Dr Daniel White, from Sargent College, Boston University, Massachusetts, USA, said: “Walking is an inexpensive activity and despite the common popular goal of walking 10,000 steps per day, our study finds only 6,000 steps are necessary to realise benefits.
"We encourage those with or at risk of knee osteoarthritis to walk at least 3,000 or more steps each day, and ultimately progress to 6,000 steps daily to minimise the risk of developing difficulty with mobility.”
* A second study at the conference of the European League Against Rheumatism in Paris, France, showed that exercise helped reduce inflammation in rheumatic disease. The findings come from a study of laboratory mice.
Researcher Dr Nicholas Young, from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio, USA, said: "Our results show the benefits that exercise could have in decreasing the great burden of rheumatic diseases.
"They also highlight the need for frequent exercise in order to create clinically significant results."
Daily Walking and The Risk of Incident Functional Limitation in Knee OA: An Observational Study. Arthritis Care & Research 12 June 2014 [abstract]
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