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Abstract
Objectives The purpose of this review is to summarise the evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies that objectively measure daily steps and health outcomes.
Design This is an umbrella review.
Data sources PubMed, Embase, Scopus, the Cochrane Library and Web of Science databases were searched through 31 January 2024.
Eligibility We included systematic reviews of observational studies (with or without meta-analysis) that assessed the association of objectively measured daily steps with human health-related outcomes. Methodological quality was assessed using ‘A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews 2’.
Results A total of 10 systematic reviews and 6 health outcomes were included after excluding irrelevant and duplicate studies. Higher daily steps were associated with more benefits than harms for a range of health-related outcomes, including all-cause mortality, cardiovascular event, skeletal muscle lesions, metabolic diseases and respiratory disease. A dose-response analysis showed that an increase of 500–1000 steps per day was associated with lower all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events. Beneficial associations were also found in patients with asthma and acutely hospitalised older adults. Conversely, one study within a systematic review suggested that higher daily steps (≥10 000) might be associated with an increased 52% risk of meniscal pathologies in individuals without knee osteoarthritis. However, one study within a systematic review suggested a potential increased risk of meniscal pathologies in individuals without knee osteoarthritis. Specifically, those exceeding 10 000 steps per day showed a 52% increase in risk.
Conclusion The results of this study suggest that daily steps are associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events. Future research could focus on identifying specific populations that may benefit most from increased daily steps and exploring potential mechanisms to enhance our understanding of how daily steps contribute to improved health outcomes.
PROSPERO registration number CRD42022347055.
- Health
- Systematic Review
- Meta-Analysis
- Physical Examination
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
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Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.
Supplementary materials
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Footnotes
Contributors Conceptualisation: FZ and CX. Data curation: JJ, MY, NL and BZ. Formal analysis: FZ and CX. Methodology: FZ and CX. Project administration: HW and FZ. Software: FZ. Supervision: HW and FZ. Writing-original draft preparation: FZ and CX. Writing-review and editing: FZ and HW. FZ is the guarantor.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, conduct, report or dissemination plans of this research.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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