It’s heart-healthy advice that’s easy to adopt on a daily basis. According to an American study, there are more effective ways to improve heart health than 10,000 steps a day.
What if living in an apartment on the 5th floor without an elevator is the best way have a healthy heart and reduce the risk of heart attack? WITHaccording to a new study conducted over 10 years with 400,000 Britons, climbing and descending fifty flights of stairs each day (roughly equivalent to 5 floors) would protect cardiovascular health as effectively as walking 10,000 steps a day.
“Short, high-intensity stair climbs are an effective way to improve cardiorespiratory fitness and lipid profile, especially in people who cannot meet current recommendations for physical activity” explained Professor Lu Qi from Tulane University (United States), the main author of the study. “The results of our study highlight the potential benefits of climbing stairs as a preventive measure for atherosclerosis,” he adds.
Go up and down at least 5 floors a day
atherosclerotic plaques, or atherosclerosis, which are deposited on the inner wall of blood vessels, are an important risk factor for heart attack or stroke. However, according to this American study, people who climb at least 5 floors on foot every day have a 3% lower chance of developing atherosclerosis than those who don’t climb even a single one.
If you climb these 5 floors between 6 and 10 times a day, the risk is reduced by 16%. And if you climb them between 1 and 15 times, the risk is reduced by 22%. “For most people, climbing the stairs is a more vigorous exercise than walking,” point out the researchers involved in this exercise preventive measure for atherosclerosis.
