Going for a walk regularly is associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes and if the walking pace is about four kilometers per hour the reduction in that risk is significant, says a new study.
In addition, each kilometer of increased speed is associated with a 9% reduction in risk, suggests a study from the Semnan University of Medical Sciences (Iran) published by the British Journal of Sports Medicine, although the authors warn of some limitations in the results. data.
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The research reviews previous studies published between 1999 and 2022, which included follow-up periods of between 3 and 11 years of 508,121 adults from the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom.
Analysis of the pooled data showed that walking at between 3 and 5 kilometers per hour was associated with a 15% lower risk of type 2 diabetes, regardless of the time spent doing that activity.
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Walking 5 or 6 kilometers was associated with a 24% lower risk compared to just walking, and walking more than six kilometers was 39% lower.
Every 1 kilometer per hour increase in walking speed was associated with a 9% lower risk of type 2 diabetes, with a minimum threshold of 4 kilometers per hour at 87 steps/minute for men and 100 for women, indicates the publication.
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The researchers reported that some of the studies they used were rated at risk of bias, mainly due to inadequate adjustment for potentially influential factors and the way gait speed had been assessed, so the results should be interpreted taking into account these limitations.
In any case, they consider that there are plausible explanations for the results, since walking speed is an important indicator of general health and a key indicator of functional capacity.
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Another investigation also published today by BMJ Open focuses on a sedentary lifestyle and analyzes its effect on the risk of fibroids.
The study led by Kunming Medical University (China) indicates that more than six hours of sedentary leisure a day doubles the risk of uterine fibroids and this risk appears to be linear in women who have not yet gone through menopause.
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The research included 6,623 women between 30 and 55 years old who, among other data, quantified the time they spent playing board games, in front of a screen, reading, knitting and other similar activities.
The more sedentary leisure time engaged, the greater the risk of uterine fibroids appeared to be. After accounting for potentially influential factors, sedentary leisure time of 6 or more hours per day was associated with a risk twice as high as that of women spending less than 2 hours.
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This is an observational study and as such cannot establish causal factors; it was also based on a subjective evaluation of many of the factors, the researchers emphasize.
A possible explanation for the observed associations could be that sedentary behavior is related to obesity, which is a risk factor for uterine fibroids, the researchers say. Both a sedentary lifestyle and obesity increase the level of estrogen in the body.
(With information from EFE)
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