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Age Wise
Walk Faster, Live Longer
Short on time? No problem. Just pick up the pace, new research suggests.
Great scientific strides have been made in recent years to show convincingly that walking is among the simplest and most effective ways for anyone at any age to improve mood, boost physical health, curb chronic pain, and help prevent disease every step of the way.
The well-established bar for achieving these benefits is pretty reasonable: a walk in the park, literally, or around the block a few times. Whatever it takes to achieve the recommended 150 minutes or more per week — five days at 30 minutes each — of moderately intense physical activity, typically defined as somewhere between “conversation is easy” and “you can hear your breathing but you’re not out of breath.”
Got no time for that? Turns out the faster you hoof it, the greater the benefit, the latest evidence indicates. Put another way, you can spend less time walking yet enjoy the same health gains.
Fast track to heart health
A new study reveals the power of picking up your pace for heart health. Researchers followed 25,000 women, ages 50 to 79, using self-reporting to determine how much they walked and how briskly. About 1,500 of the women suffered heart failure…
