I had a roommate at school who kind of plodded along when walking, and that’s being charitable. The odd thing is that he was incredibly fast as a runner. He was a high-level soccer player and dominated our intramural football team. But if you were rushing to class you did not want to be walking with Matt.

To be honest I never really thought anything of Matt’s sloth like speed in the past 20 years but all of a sudden I feel like I need to give him a call and tell him to speed up. A recent study in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings showed fairly definitively that people that walk with a self reported brisk pace tend to live longer…..much longer.

Before getting into the details of the study we need to help you understand one concept: Fitness helps protect you from mortality risk. That may seem obvious. What may not be obvious is that this is independent of your adiposity (or fat level). So there is no difference in your increased mortality risk if you are fit and overweight, versus if you are fit and obese. So just being fit can help protect you from the negative effects of being overweight.

This study used something called the UK Biobank – a large continuous study of nearly half a million Brits. In this study, the mean age was 58.2 years, and the mean body mass index was 26.7kg/m2. This would place the average study participant in the ‘overweight’ range.

The study followed participants for 7 years. They used a number of different measures primarily looking at your risk of mortality with self-reported walking pace, and grip strength (which has previously been shown to increase longevity). For weight measures, they used BMI, waist circumference and body fat percentage using electrical impedence.

For walking pace, they used a simple question: “How would you describe your usual walking pace?”

• slow pace
• Steady/average pace
• Brisk pace

Over the 7 years of follow up there were 12, 823 deaths.

With walking pace, it was found that those reporting a brisk pace had longer life expectancies across all categories of BMI, waist circumference and body fat %. Brisk walkers lifespan averaged around 87 years in women and 86 years in men.

Conversely, those with slow walking paces had MUCH lower life expectancies across all BMI, waist circumference and body fat % categories, ranging from 72 to 85 years in women and from 65 to 81 years in men.

For the entire half million person cohort of adults, self-reported walking pace was a powerful predictor of life expectancy across all levels of BMI and all levels of weight.

Previous studies have shown that walking pace can reduce all cause mortality by a significant margin. What was added in this study is that it showed that this translates into increased life expectancy across all categories of BMI, and body fat %.

Interestingly, self-reported walking pace, which is a subjective measure, was a far better predictor of longevity then hand grip strength, an objective measure.

Put simple: those that walk slower died younger.

Matt…..if you’re reading this expect a call soon to discuss your plodding!

Now everyone pick up the pace!