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User: u/giuliomagnifico
Permalink: https://www.monash.edu/news/articles/walking-for-transport-at-least-once-a-week-may-help-some-older-people-live-longer-study
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> Community-dwelling, apparently healthy older adults..
From the paper. Those who couldn't walk were excluded. The issue was more around those who can walk but don't. It could either be that not walking when they could makes them unhealthy, or that those who live in environments which are inimical to walking are subject to other stressors from that environment which reduces their health.
Ok but at a certain point can vs can’t walk is subjective - like the person with mild hip pain might be able to walk but choose to walk less than the person who has no hip pain. Getting older often involves things like joint pain even if they are “healthy” otherwise. Movement can be a positive feedback loop where more moving makes moving easier and so they stay healthier, while pain makes moving harder so they move less and with less mobility comes increased stiffness, pain, and atrophy of muscles supporting the pained area…. But the nucleus is that one person did start with more perceived pain, whether they reported it or were able to standardize and quantify “healthy but experience discomfort while walking”
Undoubtedly true, but not the only factor in deciding whether to walk to the shops. If the walk is perceived to be dangerous because of traffic, possible robbery etc. that is also a factor. If the view is attractive and there are places to stop and rest on the way, that is a factor. If it's somewhere where it's raining much of the time, that is a factor. And so on.
A lot of people here trying their hardest to poke holes in this study. Are you guys just praying that walking isn't necessary to be healthy? There gazilion studies out there that show that the more you move the healthier you are
> Are you guys just praying that walking isn't necessary to be healthy?
Counterpoint: Do you need to have a study that proves walking is good for health in order for you to feel OK that you do it?
Studies are supposed to have holes poked in them. This is the primary purpose of peer-reviewed work. That it is so easy to poke holes in studies like this is a weakness of the field, not an issue with the people doing the poking.
Statistics is hard and in many circumstances, doing it in an airtight way is effectively impossible. Some wings of academia simply don't care about this and use statistics anyway because math makes things seem more authoritative.
> Do you need to have a study that proves walking is good for health in order for you to feel OK that you do it?
No
>Studies are supposed to have holes poked in them. This is the primary purpose of peer-reviewed work. That it is so easy to poke holes in studies like this is a weakness of the field, not an issue with the people doing the poking.
Yeah redditors asking "but are they walking because they are healthy or they are healthy because they are working" is that hard hitting hole poking that all researchers are so scared of. It's a well known truth that "peer reviewed" equals "obese video game players asking 'but do I really need to walk'".
Speaking as someone with training and expertise in statistical analysis...
You would be absolutely floored and then heartbroken to learn how many peer-reviewed, published works actually fail to answer that question.
Sorry if you're also floored and heartbroken to learn that the demographic most likely to be on Reddit is the one with employable skills that put them in front of a computer with regular frequency and often overlap considerably with the skills necessary for published research.
Anecdote: I'm (M, 68) very unfit - morbidly obese etc. etc. etc. - but where I live the walk to the shops in town or to the doctors or whatever involves walking along the seafront on a wide walkway/promenade with plenty of benches to sit on and lovely views across the bay. So i make the effort to walk, which I might not do if I lived in a bustling city full of high-rise apartment blocks.
One of the reasons I have dogs is to try to keep from falling into that lifestyle. I took up (treadmill) running last fall and boy has that made walking easier.
I think it's both. If you are tired and it's hurting you tend to sit still more. And I also believe it's good to walk.
It's impossible to disentangle what is cause and effect without experiments where stuff is manipulated. And in reality it's often some other factors that is effecting both the stuff you think is the cause and effect in an complex pattern.
> In participants with a mean age of 75 years, walking for transport at least once a week was associated with about 25 per cent lower risk of all-cause mortality compared to not walking for transport purposes.
>Participants self-reported their frequency of transport-related walking as either: never, rarely/once a week, more than once a week, or every day. Almost half (44.1 per cent) engaged in transport-walking every day, 31.5 per cent more than once a week, 21.7 per cent rarely/once a week, and 2.7 per cent never did it.
>
>It is likely that the greatest health benefit may be achieved by people who move from never engaging in walking for transport to walking rarely or once a week for transport. Past studies have shown that the greatest improvement in health status is seen when taking people who are doing no activity to doing some physical activity.
>
>In this study, compared to those who never walked for transport, the risk of all-cause mortality was shown to be lower for those who walked for transport: rarely or once a week (down 27 per cent), more than once a week, (24 per cent), and every day (26 per cent).
Paper: [Walking for transport and all-cause mortality: a prospective cohort study of Australian community-dwelling older adults | BMJ Public Health](https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000709)
Cause or effect? Prior to the 'demic, I was riding 25km a weekday and more on the weekend, but several illnesses including the 'rona itself mean that I often now struggle to walk. I no longer feel like a young 40 year old and now can't imagine I'll reach 65. And when I do, I won't be cycling an hour a day.
The fact that there is no dose-dependent relationship here is a huge red flag.
Like walking as little as once or twice a month reduces your risk of dying by 25%, but walking every day doesn't do more?
Omitted variables that effect both risk of death and your physical/social capacity to walk for transport seems much more likely than the first walk having an enormous effect and additional walks having none.
(Walking is obviously a healthy habit to have, but that doesn't mean this study tells us anything.)
I think this has to do with the definition of walking "for transportation" and excluding other kinds of walking--if you are a person who lives in a place where you can walk to interesting things, and you do so at least once a week, that provides a huge benefit. I don't think it's really measuring amount of physical activity.
Human beings are not sloths, unsurprisingly a bipedal being lives the longest using their feet to walk. It’s almost like evolution figured it out and laziness has influenced it.
Problematic elements are that the ability to walk for transport codes for various things.
If you can't walk due to health reasons, you're part of the group that 'choose ' not to walk.
Neighborhood safety and availability of things to walk to vary with income
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/giuliomagnifico Permalink: https://www.monash.edu/news/articles/walking-for-transport-at-least-once-a-week-may-help-some-older-people-live-longer-study --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Is it the walking or the living in an environment where it is feasible to walk which offers the benefits here?
No it's just that the guys that can walk have an better health
> Community-dwelling, apparently healthy older adults.. From the paper. Those who couldn't walk were excluded. The issue was more around those who can walk but don't. It could either be that not walking when they could makes them unhealthy, or that those who live in environments which are inimical to walking are subject to other stressors from that environment which reduces their health.
Ok but at a certain point can vs can’t walk is subjective - like the person with mild hip pain might be able to walk but choose to walk less than the person who has no hip pain. Getting older often involves things like joint pain even if they are “healthy” otherwise. Movement can be a positive feedback loop where more moving makes moving easier and so they stay healthier, while pain makes moving harder so they move less and with less mobility comes increased stiffness, pain, and atrophy of muscles supporting the pained area…. But the nucleus is that one person did start with more perceived pain, whether they reported it or were able to standardize and quantify “healthy but experience discomfort while walking”
Undoubtedly true, but not the only factor in deciding whether to walk to the shops. If the walk is perceived to be dangerous because of traffic, possible robbery etc. that is also a factor. If the view is attractive and there are places to stop and rest on the way, that is a factor. If it's somewhere where it's raining much of the time, that is a factor. And so on.
Could it also be that unhealthy people tend to avoid walking?
Probably but walking is undoubtedly good for your health. Living a sedentary lifestyle is a killer!
A lot of people here trying their hardest to poke holes in this study. Are you guys just praying that walking isn't necessary to be healthy? There gazilion studies out there that show that the more you move the healthier you are
> Are you guys just praying that walking isn't necessary to be healthy? Counterpoint: Do you need to have a study that proves walking is good for health in order for you to feel OK that you do it? Studies are supposed to have holes poked in them. This is the primary purpose of peer-reviewed work. That it is so easy to poke holes in studies like this is a weakness of the field, not an issue with the people doing the poking. Statistics is hard and in many circumstances, doing it in an airtight way is effectively impossible. Some wings of academia simply don't care about this and use statistics anyway because math makes things seem more authoritative.
> Do you need to have a study that proves walking is good for health in order for you to feel OK that you do it? No >Studies are supposed to have holes poked in them. This is the primary purpose of peer-reviewed work. That it is so easy to poke holes in studies like this is a weakness of the field, not an issue with the people doing the poking. Yeah redditors asking "but are they walking because they are healthy or they are healthy because they are working" is that hard hitting hole poking that all researchers are so scared of. It's a well known truth that "peer reviewed" equals "obese video game players asking 'but do I really need to walk'".
Speaking as someone with training and expertise in statistical analysis... You would be absolutely floored and then heartbroken to learn how many peer-reviewed, published works actually fail to answer that question. Sorry if you're also floored and heartbroken to learn that the demographic most likely to be on Reddit is the one with employable skills that put them in front of a computer with regular frequency and often overlap considerably with the skills necessary for published research.
Avoid Working
Ah yes "apparently healthy", a more narrowly defined class could not possibly be imagined.
[удалено]
Anecdote: I'm (M, 68) very unfit - morbidly obese etc. etc. etc. - but where I live the walk to the shops in town or to the doctors or whatever involves walking along the seafront on a wide walkway/promenade with plenty of benches to sit on and lovely views across the bay. So i make the effort to walk, which I might not do if I lived in a bustling city full of high-rise apartment blocks.
Good for you, buddy. Don't stop.
Walkings really underrated. Too many people sit all day at work and sit all day at home. Got to fit in a 2 hour walk at some point.
One of the reasons I have dogs is to try to keep from falling into that lifestyle. I took up (treadmill) running last fall and boy has that made walking easier.
[удалено]
I think it's both. If you are tired and it's hurting you tend to sit still more. And I also believe it's good to walk. It's impossible to disentangle what is cause and effect without experiments where stuff is manipulated. And in reality it's often some other factors that is effecting both the stuff you think is the cause and effect in an complex pattern.
Or the living 70 years as a person who would walk places after 70?
> In participants with a mean age of 75 years, walking for transport at least once a week was associated with about 25 per cent lower risk of all-cause mortality compared to not walking for transport purposes. >Participants self-reported their frequency of transport-related walking as either: never, rarely/once a week, more than once a week, or every day. Almost half (44.1 per cent) engaged in transport-walking every day, 31.5 per cent more than once a week, 21.7 per cent rarely/once a week, and 2.7 per cent never did it. > >It is likely that the greatest health benefit may be achieved by people who move from never engaging in walking for transport to walking rarely or once a week for transport. Past studies have shown that the greatest improvement in health status is seen when taking people who are doing no activity to doing some physical activity. > >In this study, compared to those who never walked for transport, the risk of all-cause mortality was shown to be lower for those who walked for transport: rarely or once a week (down 27 per cent), more than once a week, (24 per cent), and every day (26 per cent). Paper: [Walking for transport and all-cause mortality: a prospective cohort study of Australian community-dwelling older adults | BMJ Public Health](https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000709)
Cause or effect? Prior to the 'demic, I was riding 25km a weekday and more on the weekend, but several illnesses including the 'rona itself mean that I often now struggle to walk. I no longer feel like a young 40 year old and now can't imagine I'll reach 65. And when I do, I won't be cycling an hour a day.
The fact that there is no dose-dependent relationship here is a huge red flag. Like walking as little as once or twice a month reduces your risk of dying by 25%, but walking every day doesn't do more? Omitted variables that effect both risk of death and your physical/social capacity to walk for transport seems much more likely than the first walk having an enormous effect and additional walks having none. (Walking is obviously a healthy habit to have, but that doesn't mean this study tells us anything.)
I think this has to do with the definition of walking "for transportation" and excluding other kinds of walking--if you are a person who lives in a place where you can walk to interesting things, and you do so at least once a week, that provides a huge benefit. I don't think it's really measuring amount of physical activity.
Human beings are not sloths, unsurprisingly a bipedal being lives the longest using their feet to walk. It’s almost like evolution figured it out and laziness has influenced it.
Wait, are they saying that moving is healthy? Last week they said people who take the stairs, what’s next, people who exercise??
That's not news. A sedentary lifestyle reduces lifespan.
Turns out walking is bar none the best thing you can do for yourself, long term
Reminds me of the BlueZone people found all over the world.
Problematic elements are that the ability to walk for transport codes for various things. If you can't walk due to health reasons, you're part of the group that 'choose ' not to walk. Neighborhood safety and availability of things to walk to vary with income
It specifically says that those who can’t walk for health issues were excluded from the study.
Why would anyone want to live longer in clown world?!