Step on it! Walking this fast can cut type 2 diabetes risk by almost 40%: study

That slow person on the sidewalk in front of you could be raising your risk of type 2 diabetes.

It’s widely known that walking is great exercise and reduces the risk of many diseases, including cancer, heart disease and dementia.

And now, a study reveals that walking at a brisker pace significantly lowers the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

But how fast is fast enough?

The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, finds that people with an average walking speed — roughly 2 mph to 3 mph — had a 15% lower risk of type 2 diabetes than people who walked at a slower, strolling pace.

And brisk walkers who truck along at 3 mph to 4 mph have a 24% lower risk of type 2 diabetes. But champion walkers, who stride like Olympians at more than 4 mph, enjoy a 39% reduced risk.

For reference, a pace of 4 mph is fast enough to complete a circular track around a football field four times in 15 minutes.

But if that’s too rigorous, some experts suggest walking at a pace where you’re able to talk, but not sing — evidence that your heart rate is elevated enough to achieve some real health benefits.

And, of course, many fitness trackers and pedometers, such as the Fitbit Charge 6 Fitness Tracker, can accurately track your speed, distance, number of steps, heart rate and other data.

“Walking is cost-free, simple and for most people can be integrated into regular activities like getting to work, shopping and visiting friends,” Neil Gibson, senior physical activity adviser at Diabetes UK, told the Guardian.

“[B]eing physically active, which can include brisk walking, can help lower a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes and that increasing the intensity of activity, such as by walking faster, gives greater overall health benefits,” Gibson added.

The research team — from Imperial College London, the University of Medical Sciences in Iran and Oslo New University College in Norway — looked at 10 studies that included over 508,000 adults from the UK, Japan and the US.

Their study also noted how the speed of walking is a significantly different parameter than the amount of time spent walking.

“While current strategies to increase total walking time are beneficial, it may also be reasonable to encourage people to walk at faster speeds to further increase the health benefits of walking,” the researchers wrote.

There were some limitations to the research. The researchers acknowledged that people with a faster walking speed are naturally more likely to be fitter, with greater muscle mass and better overall health.

If walking fast is a problem where you live, maybe a flight to Singapore is in order: Residents of that city were found to be the fastest walkers on Earth, clocked at an average of 3.9 mph. Copenhagen and Madrid came in second and third place.

New Yorkers came in at a leisurely eighth place in that study, which also revealed that people are walking faster than they did a decade earlier.

And a 2020 study from the journal Sustainability found that the average walking speed for most adults is about 3 mph, but that rate typically declines with age — people over 65 tend to walk about 2 mph.

And while men usually walk at a faster clip than women, men tend to slow down when walking with other people, whereas women tend to speed up in pairs or in groups.

The Department of Health and Human Services recommends that people get 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity like a brisk walk or bike ride, plus muscle-strengthening activity at least two times per week.

But “if that’s more than you can do right now, do what you can,” the HHS advises. “Even five minutes of physical activity has real health benefits.”