There are multiple reasons to walk, to try to approach that figure (rather symbolic) of the 10,000 daily steps. For many, keeping weight under control is one of the main reasons.
In this sense, genetics plays an important role, since some people have greater predisposition to accumulate body mass. We have only a couple of decades learning what are the (diverse) genetic variants that are associated with our ease to increase our weight.
Know them, however, the door has opened us To be able to design strategies that bring us closer to our goals When maintaining or reducing our weight, thus minimizing the effort to achieve them.
Because each individual is a world and not all bodies react in the same way to certain diets or exercise regimes. This is a breeding ground for failure, since what for a person is a “miraculous” strategy to another can take it to a dead end.
A study Published this year made a compilation of the different genetic variants identified to date linked to this ease to lose weight through diets and exercises. The team found 30 genetic markers linked to our body’s response to diets and 24 associated with the exercise.
Because LAGENTICS is not an isolated factor: it is not our genes in themselves that make us fat. These are nothing more than a part of a complex system in which they interact with our diet and other life habits.
More steps
To understand these interactions, A study performed by the American Heart Association analyzed the degree to which walk could reduce the impact of genetics and sedentary life About our body mass index. The analysis, published in 2012, observed that the act of walking could, indeed, counteract our predisposition genetics to gain weight, in front of sedentary habits How to watch television whose effect was the opposite.
To carry out the study, the team compiled information on more than 12,000 participants, including information on genetic variants (32 in total) associated with high body mass indices. They estimated that walking at least one hour a day could reduce people’s body mass by about 0.06 kg/m².
A more recent study I deepened the matter. The analysis, published this year in the magazine Jama Networkit was raised if people with certain genetic predispositions linked to overweight required specific levels of exercise if they wanted to avoid reaching the limits established in body mass index for obesity.
The study It was done With 3,124 adult participants and it was observed that, indeed, people with this genetic predisposition required to walk more in terms of steps given a day than people with less risk associated with their genes. According to the data obtained, people in the high risk of risk should walk about 2,280 more steps That people in the average percentiles, a total of 11,020 steps per day, if they wanted to equate their risk of obesity.
Although, as a general rule, controlling our diet is a better tool to lose weight, exercise can help us in our attempts. Exercise is, for example, an ideal tool to avoid recovering the weight we have gained.
But exercising is, above all, a way to stay healthy. Active life has very diverse positive impacts on our healthespecially in the field of cardiovascular health.
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Image | Tamar Willoughby
*An earlier version of this article was published in August 2024
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