Women who struggle to meet their daily step count have been reassured they can slash their risk of heart attacks and strokes by more than a quarter with just two 40-minute walks each week.
Fresh research from Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital has tracked over 13,000 women and found that "bunching" your steps into a couple of weekly walks works just as well as spreading them out daily.
The findings challenge the traditional advice about needing to walk every single day. Instead, older women can get the same heart-protecting benefits by taking one or two proper walks each week.
The research team monitored the women, who averaged 71 years old, using fitness trackers over seven consecutive days between 2011 and 2015.
Bunching your steps into a couple of weekly walks may be beneficial for the heart
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They then followed their health outcomes for nearly 11 years through to the end of 2024.
Dr Rikuta Hamaya, who led the study, explained that for older women, the total number of steps taken each week matters more than how often they walk.
She said: "There is no 'better' or 'best' pattern to take steps... 'bunching' steps is a viable option for health."
The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that women could achieve significant health benefits whether they spread their walking throughout the week or concentrated it into just a couple of sessions.
The numbers revealed that women who managed 4,000 steps just once or twice weekly saw their risk of death drop by 26 per cent compared to those who didn't reach this threshold at all.
The cardiovascular benefits were equally impressive - a 27 per cent lower risk of dying from heart disease or stroke with those same one or two weekly walks of roughly 40 minutes each.
Interestingly, walking more frequently didn't provide much extra benefit.
Women who walked three times a week saw their overall death risk fall further to 40 per cent, but their cardiovascular death risk stayed at 27 per cent.
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Even higher step counts of 5,000 to 7,000 on three or more days only marginally improved outcomes.
During the monitoring period, 1,765 women died and 781 developed cardiovascular disease - a condition affecting over 7.6 million people in the UK and causing about one in four premature deaths in those under 75.
Women who walked three times a week saw their overall death risk fall to 40%
|GETTY
The researchers acknowledge some limitations. The study was observational, so it can't prove direct cause and effect.
Physical activity was only measured for one week out of the 11 years, and dietary habits weren't tracked.
Recent Australian research supports this, too, showing that 7,000 steps provides nearly identical benefits to 10,000.
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