THURSDAY, Oct. 19, 2017 (HealthDay News) — of which evening stroll you take after dinner most nights may be doing you more Great than you realize — completely new research suggests even a bit of regular walking can reduce your risk of death.

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“Walking has been described as the ‘perfect exercise’ because the idea is usually simple, free, convenient, doesn’t require any special equipment or training, as well as can be done at any age,” said study leader Alpa Patel, a cancer epidemiologist coming from the American Cancer Society.

“With the near doubling of adults aged 65 as well as older expected by 2030, clinicians should encourage patients to walk even if less than the recommended amount, especially as they age, for health as well as longevity,” Patel said in a society news Discharge.

Previous research has linked regular walking having a lower risk of heart disease, diabetes, as well as breast as well as colon cancers. However, many American adults don’t get the recommended levels of walking or some other types of exercise. The recommended amounts are at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity a week.

In This particular study, researchers examined data coming from nearly 140,000 American adults. Of those, 95 percent said they did some walking. Nearly half said walking was their only form of moderate-vigorous physical activity.

The researchers adjusted the data to account for some other factors of which could affect the risk of death, such as smoking, obesity as well as chronic health problems.

After those adjustments, the researchers concluded of which people whose only exercise was walking less than two hours per week had a lower risk of death coming from any cause than those who did no physical activity.

Those who did one to two times the minimum amount of recommended weekly exercise (2.5 to 5 hours) by only walking had a 20 percent lower risk of death. The risk of death was similar among those who exceeded activity recommendations through only walking.

Walking was most strongly associated with reduced risk of death coming from respiratory diseases — about a 35 percent lower risk for those who walked more than six hours a week than those who were least active.

Walking was also associated with about 20 percent lower risk of death coming from heart disease. People who only walked also had a 9 percent lower risk of death coming from cancer, the study authors said.

However, none of the results proved a direct cause-as well as-effect relationship. The study was only designed to show associations.

The findings were published online Oct. 19 within the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

— Robert Preidt