Take the Stairs to Live Longer, Study Says
It’s not new information that regular cardio exercise is good for your health, reducing your risk of developing cardiovascular disease, including heart failure, strokes and even heart attacks. However, in our increasingly time-poor lives, fitting in hours at the gym each week can often feel unfeasible.
The good news is you don’t necessarily need this level of commitment to future-proof your health. Recent research has found even an activity as simple as taking the stairs rather than the lift whenever you get the opportunity can reduce your chance of developing cardiovascular disease and increase longevity.
Considering the fact that one in four adults worldwide don’t meet the current recommended levels of physical activity (at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate aerobic activity per week), taking the stairs every chance you get is an easily achievable goal. It's a great way to fit in some microdoses of activity and get your heart racing every day, no matter your otherwise packed schedule.
The study
The research, conducted by scientists at the University of East Anglia, was presented at ESC Preventive Cardiology 2024, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology. Authors conducted a meta-analysis, and studies were included regardless of the number of flights of stairs climbed or the speed of climbing. The final analysis comprised nine studies, with 480,479 participants ranging in age from 35 to 84. The study population included both healthy participants and those with a history of heart attack or peripheral arterial disease. Some 47 per cent of the study participants were men.
The results
Compared with not climbing stairs at all, stair climbing was associated with a 24 per cent reduced risk of dying from any cause1 and a 39 per cent reduced risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.2 Opting for the stairs rather than the lift was also linked with a reduced risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
The conclusion
Study authors concluded that, if you have the choice between taking the stairs or the lift, you should head straight for the stairs every time, in order to future-proof your health and help you live longer.
'Even brief bursts of physical activity have beneficial health impacts, and short bouts of stair climbing should be an achievable target to integrate into daily routines,' says study author Dr Sophie Paddock of the University of East Anglia and Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. 'Based on these results, we would encourage people to incorporate stair climbing into their day-to-day lives.'
While the study suggests that the more stairs climbed, the greater the benefits, more research needs to be conducted to confirm this.
1Relative risk 0.76, 95% confidence interval 0.62-0.94, p=0.01.
2Relative risk 0.61, 95% confidence interval 0.48-0.79, p=0.0002.
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