Medically reviewed in June 2018
Updated on March 1, 2021
Boosting your pedometer to 10,000 steps a day could help prevent diabetes, according to a study—especially if you're not hoofing it that much right now.
The magic number of steps
In the study, researchers in Australia used pedometers to calculate participants' average number of daily steps over the course of five years. People whose pedometers showed an increase in steps over time had better insulin sensitivity at the end of the study—a good sign for anyone who hopes to avoid and prevent diabetes, since insulin helps your body use blood sugar. Just how much does walking and diabetes prevention work? Researchers estimated that based on the study results, a mostly sedentary person could improve his or her insulin sensitivity nearly threefold by working up from 3,000 steps every five days, to 10,000 steps a day.
Diabetes walking exercise benefits
Not only did the big steppers have better insulin sensitivity after five years, but their body mass indexes and waist-to-hip ratios had also improved over the course of the study. Which led researchers to believe the blood sugar health benefits may have been a direct result of the leaner, healthier body compositions that result from extra steps.
