A study published in JAMA Network Open has found that adults who walk faster — both in a short test and in everyday life — were less likely to die over a follow-up period of nearly 12 years, according to detikHealth. The research tracked 4,067 adults in the United Kingdom with an average age of about 69. Of those participants, 739 died during the monitoring period.
The findings add to a growing body of work on walking speed as a practical indicator of health in later life. detikHealth reports that the connection between faster walking and lower mortality remained even after researchers accounted for other health and lifestyle factors.
Why it matters
Walking speed is easy to observe and requires no laboratory equipment, which makes it attractive as a low-cost signal of how well the body is functioning. According to detikHealth, the study's authors wanted to know whether the pace people naturally keep in daily life is tied to their risk of death over time.
Beth Templin, a certified clinical geriatrics specialist and CEO of HouseFit Physical Therapy & Fitness in St. Louis, told Fox News Health that clinicians already treat gait speed as a meaningful measure. She described it as a "sixth vital sign" in physiotherapy, calling it a quick snapshot of how well the body's systems are working together. Templin was not involved in the research.
Her reasoning, as reported by detikHealth: walking quickly demands strong legs, healthy heart and lung function, good balance, and a brain and nervous system that can coordinate all of it. When walking pace begins to slip, she said, that can be an early warning that one of those systems is declining — sometimes before anything shows up on a lab test.
How the study was run
Participants completed a brief walking test at their normal pace. They also wore activity trackers on their wrists for nine days, allowing researchers to measure walking speed during ordinary daily activity rather than only in a clinical setting, detikHealth reports.
The combination matters because it captures both a controlled measurement and real-world movement. Over roughly 12 years, the team compared walking pace against mortality records and found that faster walkers fared better on both measures.
The researchers were careful about the limits of their work. detikHealth notes that the participants were generally healthier than the wider population, which may make the results less directly transferable to other groups. There is also no single standard method for measuring everyday walking speed with wrist-worn trackers, so more research is needed to confirm whether the pattern holds elsewhere.
Templin made a similar point about interpretation. She said the study shows an association, not evidence that walking faster on its own extends lifespan — a distinction detikHealth highlighted in its reporting.
What older adults can do
For people who want to pick up the pace, simply adding more steps to the day may not be enough. Templin told Fox News Health that the goal should be building the underlying capacity rather than only the habit. Most people try to walk more, she said, when speed actually comes from muscle strength and balance.
She suggested straightforward strength exercises for the legs, such as standing up from a chair without pushing off with the hands, or rising onto the heels while holding onto a table for support.
She also recommended short bursts of brisk walking. After a warm-up, a person could walk fast for one minute, slow down for two, and then repeat, gradually lengthening the faster intervals as fitness improves.
The study does not settle whether changing walking speed changes health outcomes, and the authors call for further research in other populations. For now, walking pace is best read as a signal worth noticing — by patients and by the clinicians who see them — rather than a prescription on its own.
