WALK FASTER...LIVE LONGER

From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

DAY   USA  WORLD    Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9     1093     4732         1185        246       82

July    22      1205     7128         1293      1120     572

Aug    12      1504     6556        1242        835     130

Sept     9      1208      6222       1136       1168       82

Oct     21      1225      6849         571        703       85

Nov    25       2304    12025        620        518      118

Dec    30       3880    14748       1224       299      465

Jan     14       4142      15512        1151        189      712

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

Mar      2       1989     9490        1726       110      194

April     6        906    11787         4211       631       37

May     4        853     13667        3025      3786     59 

June    1        287    10637         2346      3205      95

 July    7         251      8440        1595        817      411

Aug     4         656    10120        1118        532      423 

Sept   22      2228      9326          839       279     124

Oct      6       2102      8255          543       315       59

Nov    3        1436      7830         186        458       23

Dec     1       1633      8475          266        477       28

Jan     7        2025      6729         148         285     140

Feb     2        2990   12012          946        991      175

Mar     2        1778     7756          335         173       28 

Apr     1         439      4056         290         52        12

May    5         225      2404        151            ?        64 

June    2        216      1413          130          10        31 

July    7         320       1958        297          38         9 

Aug   4          311        2138         258          70         ? 

Sep    1          272       1732          39            ?          ? 

Oct    6         281        1305        119            9          ?

        12          322       1254          60          12         ? 

        13         246        1240          44          10       52

        19         297        1444         102          20        ? 

        20         175        1301           66          10        ?

        26         262       1349         163            ?        ?

Summary:  Just when you thought things might have been getting better...maybe not.

• The U.S. still led the world yesterday with 262 new deaths, with Germany #2 at 196 new deaths.
• Germany led the world yesterday with 78,905 new cases, with Japan #2  50,294 new cases.  USA #7 with 28,582 new cases.
• Thus far since the beginning the pandemic, the world showed 6,587,779 total deaths, USA #1 with 1,094,163 and Brazil #2 with 687,779.

President Joe Biden got his second booster.  Remember, he had COVID-19 a little more than three months ago.  Less than 10% of those eligible likewise got theirs so far in America.  15 Craigside yesterday had a mass inoculation for this bivalent booster, my fifth shot.

I might finally add that China now offers a COVID vaccine taken, not by injection, but a mist sucked into your mouth.  Not certain yet about the efficiency, but some just are afraid of taking shots, so this option should ultimately increase vaccination coverage.

Last month I posted on walking to prevent dementia...and other common ailments:

By now most know that walking 10,000 steps/day is supposedly good for your health and also helps delay dementia.

• If your average step is a yard long, then 10,000 steps would take you 5.7 miles, which is just about the distance from where I live at 15 Craigside to the Ala Wai Golf Course.  This also happens to be the distance if you walked 18 holes there.
• I think, though, that my steps are only 33 inches long because I've checked, and it takes me 110 steps to walk 100 yards.

I ordered from Amazon a pedometer by Poriylzz for $17.  Don't buy this one.  It's difficult to put on and a battery change will someday be supremely challenging.  I did not bother with returning.  Not worth my effort.  I might yet use it because there is a setting for the length of your step.

I then went to various authorities providing the best for the money, and here is just one, with the best overall being Omron JH-321 Tri-Axis Alvita Pedometer for $27.  It looked too complicated to me, for I don't need to know things like calories burned.  So I bought the #2 pedometer on the list for $25:  3DFitBud Simple Step Count Walking Pedometer with Clip and Lanyard, A420S2 (left).  Also runs on batteries, but one CR2032 supposedly will function for a full year, and I just so happened to have substitutes for other electronics.  The other positive is that you can hang it around your neck, click it to something you're wearing, or place it in a pocket.  A negative is there is only one setting, to reset your steps to zero.

But how fast should you walk?  Interestingly enough, two years ago I reported that fast walkers lived an average of 20 years longer.  So it's no surprise that last month I read an article that said speeding up your daily walk could have big benefits.  

In a new study, which looks at activity tracker data from 78,500 people, walking at a brisk pace for about 30 minutes a day led to a reduced risk of heart disease, cancer, dementia and death, compared with walking a similar number of steps but at a slower pace. These results were recently published in two papers in the journals JAMA Internal Medicine and JAMA Neurology.

Further:

• Researchers found that every 2,000 additional steps a day lowered the risk of premature death, heart disease and cancer by about 10 percent, up to about 10,000 steps per day. When it came to developing dementia, 9,800 steps per day was associated with a 50 percent reduced risk, with a risk reduction of 25 percent starting at about 3,800 steps per day. 
• Above 10,000 steps a day, there just weren’t enough participants with that level of activity to determine whether there were additional benefits.
• 
  But then the researchers of this study did something new. When they looked at the step rate, per minute, of the highest 30 minutes of activity a day, they found that participants whose average highest pace was a brisk walk (between 80 and 100 steps per minute) had better health outcomes compared with those who walked a similar amount each day but at a slower pace.
• Brisk walkers had a 35 percent lower risk of dying, a 25 percent lower chance of developing heart disease or cancer and a 30 percent lower risk of developing dementia, compared with those whose average pace was slower.

More so:  To put these numbers into perspective, a person whose total daily steps include 2,400 to 3,000 that are brisk walking could see a sharp reduction in the risk for developing heart disease, cancer and dementia, even without taking many additional steps beyond the total daily number.

And here is further good news:  “It doesn’t have to be a consecutive 30-minute session,” said Matthew Ahmadi, a research fellow at the University of Sydney and one of the authors of the studies. “It can just be in brief bursts here and there throughout your day.”

So in summary:  But the important thing is to aim for walking a little faster than your normal pace. When it comes to the differences between brisk walking and jogging, there wasn’t enough data to determine if one was better than another, and both resulted in better overall health outcomes than did a slower average pace.

Yet:   A 2013 study followed 49,005 runners and walkers and suggested that brisk walking or jogging similar distances offer similar heart health benefits, though walking a mile takes longer.

Sometimes I play contrarian, but I think walking too briskly can also be dangerous.  The faster you walk, the higher the odds for you tripping and/or falling.  Walk, yes, but do this safely knowing your limits.

While medical authorities warn you not to stress your mind, for that could lead to all kinds of problems, like mental illness and inflammation, when it comes to exercise, physically stressing your body apparently has benefits.  In a sense, I use this state of mind to maintain a more favorable weight.  I don't like to exercise at all, but hate it more when in any way stressful.  When I gain weight, I tell my body that I will need to punish you by forcing you to exercises harder.  This does not cause me to lose more weight, but tells my mind to avoid desserts, snacks and the like...or else, I will need to go through the agony of stressful exercise.

Okay, if faster walking is better than not, what about faster exercising?  Also two years ago I focused on the 7-minute exercise, just one form of high intensity interval training, which has one option of 30 seconds.  After a while, while appreciating the time savings, abandoned these quickies, mostly because they were too stressful.

So walk.  Here are some hints on how to get started, walking speed, etc.  Further down, this article says in case you are attacked, yell FIRE instead of HELP.  People will more readily respond when they hear FIRE. Many avoid helping, for they too can get in trouble.  Walking in your neighborhood means crossing traffic, or biting dogs and so on.  We have treadmills where I live, but I don't trust myself on them, for one misstep can lead to serious doom.  Thus, my weekly golf suffices.  Plus I use a cross-trainer, which sort of is like walking, but is safer because I can't fall.

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