Do You Really Need 10,000 Steps a Day?

Do you really need 10,000 steps a day? No, and the number was never a finding. It was the name of a Japanese pedometer sold in 1965. When researchers finally measured steps with wearable devices and followed people for years, the benefit curve did most of its climbing well before 10,000: the largest pooled analysis puts the bend at roughly 5,000 to 7,000 steps a day, and an earlier one found it depends on your age. This article traces where the number came from, what the step studies actually measured, where the curve flattens, whether pace matters, and where daily support for healthy blood flow and circulation from a nattokinase supplement fits beside the walking itself.

In this article: Where 10,000 steps came from · What the step studies actually measured · Where the curve bends, by age · Does pace matter as much as the count? · What a desk day does to the count · Where Great Billiom Nattokinase 10,800 FU fits

Where 10,000 steps came from

The round number predates every study that has since tested it. In 1965 a Japanese company, Yamasa Toki, began selling a step-counter called the Manpo-Kei, which translates as "10,000 steps meter," with the slogan "Let's walk 10,000 steps a day." Walking clubs were popular in Japan at the time, and as Christopher Labos of McGill University's Office for Science and Society writes, the round figure and the catchy line helped it spread; the goal "may have originally been a marketing slogan."

The researchers who study steps say the same thing in drier language. The 2019 Women's Health Study paper in JAMA Internal Medicine opens with: "A goal of 10 000 steps/d is commonly believed by the public to be necessary for health, but this number has limited scientific basis." The 2022 meta-analysis in The Lancet Public Health opens the same way: "Although 10 000 steps per day is widely promoted to have health benefits, there is little evidence to support this recommendation."

That is not to say 10,000 is wrong. A 2011 review in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity found healthy adults typically take between 4,000 and 18,000 steps a day and called 10,000 "reasonable for this population." Japan's health ministry set 8,000 to 10,000 as a target for people using physical activity to promote their health. The number is a fine ceiling for a person who already walks a lot. The question is whether it is the floor, and that is what the device studies went looking for.

What the step studies actually measured

Every study below works the same way. Adults wear an accelerometer or pedometer for about a week, researchers record how many steps they averaged, and then the cohort is followed, often for close to a decade, while deaths and newly recorded conditions are logged from registries. The analysis asks whether people who took more steps at the start fared differently later, after adjusting for age, smoking, weight and existing conditions.

Two honest limits come with that design. These are observational cohorts, not randomized trials, so they show association, and people who walk more differ in other ways that statistics can only partly remove. And one week of wear stands in for years of behavior. The findings are taken seriously anyway because of their consistency: different countries, devices and decades, and the same shape of curve each time.

Where the curve bends, by age

The shape matters more than any single number. The 2019 JAMA Internal Medicine study followed 16,741 women, average age 72, for about four years. Compared with the lowest quarter, who averaged about 2,700 steps a day, women taking roughly 4,400 steps already had significantly lower mortality rates, and the curve "declined progressively with higher mean steps per day until approximately 7500 steps/d, after which they leveled."

A 2020 study in JAMA tracked 4,840 American adults aged 40 and over from the national NHANES survey for a mean of ten years. Against 4,000 steps a day, 8,000 steps was associated with about half the all-cause mortality (hazard ratio 0.49), and 12,000 steps with about a third (0.35).

The 2022 meta-analysis in The Lancet Public Health pooled 15 cohorts and 47,471 adults followed for a median of seven years. Its central finding is the one worth remembering, because it splits by age: risk kept falling with more steps "among adults aged 60 years and older ... until 6000-8000 steps per day and among adults younger than 60 years until 8000-10 000 steps per day." After those points the curve flattened. A 2023 meta-analysis of 17 cohorts and 226,889 people added the low end of the scale: benefit began above a reference of about 3,867 steps a day, and each additional 1,000 steps was associated with 15 percent lower all-cause mortality.

Then, in July 2025, the broadest review to date appeared in The Lancet Public Health00164-1). Led by Melody Ding at the University of Sydney, it covered 57 studies from 35 cohorts and looked beyond mortality. Compared with 2,000 steps a day, 7,000 was associated with a 47 percent lower risk of death from any cause, a 25 percent lower rate of new cardiovascular disease, a 38 percent lower rate of dementia, a 22 percent lower rate of depressive symptoms and a 28 percent lower rate of falls. For several of those outcomes the curve bent "at around 5000-7000 steps per day." In the university's announcement, Ding called 7,000 "a realistic goal based on our findings," and her co-author Katherine Owen put the other half plainly: "For people who are already active, 10,000 steps a day is great."

Read down the right-hand column and the pattern is hard to miss. The steepest part of the curve sits between 2,000 and about 7,000 steps. Above that, more is still associated with a little more benefit, especially under 60, but the returns shrink, and by 10,000 the all-cause mortality figure was, in the Sydney team's words, "nearly identical" to 7,000.

Does pace matter as much as the count?

Less than you might expect. The large cohort studies tested stepping intensity, measured as the fastest minute or the fastest 30 minutes of the day. In the older women, faster cadence looked protective until the analysis adjusted for total steps, after which "all associations were attenuated, and most were no longer significant." The US adult study reached the same conclusion: "Greater step intensity was not significantly associated with lower mortality after adjustment for total steps per day." The 2022 meta-analysis found a residual effect for the peak 30-minute and 60-minute cadence, but it too was attenuated once total steps were counted.

So the day's total does most of the work. The 2011 review gives a useful conversion: about 100 steps a minute is the floor of moderate-intensity walking, so a 30-minute walk adds roughly 3,000 steps on top of whatever the day already contained, and 7,000 to 8,000 steps a day is where people who meet the standard activity guidelines tend to land. The same review reported that US adults averaged roughly 5,100 steps a day when measured by pedometer. For many people, one deliberate walk is the difference between the flat part of the curve and the steep part. Steps are the aerobic side of the picture; for what a different kind of exercise does to resting blood pressure, and how often it has to be repeated, our article on wall sits and blood pressure covers the 100-adult trial that tested one, two or three sessions a week.

What a desk day does to the count

The reason this matters for circulation is that a step count is also a record of how often your calf muscles contracted. Each stride squeezes the deep veins of the legs and pushes blood back toward the heart, and on a day spent largely in a chair that pump sits idle for hours at a stretch. We have covered the two halves of that picture before: what 24 trials show about circulation while sitting found that two to three minutes of leg movement every 20 to 30 minutes was the most consistent way to keep the leg arteries responsive, and our article on heavy legs after standing all day explains why standing still counts for nothing on a pedometer and not much for the veins either.

The step research and the sitting research answer different questions, and both hold: breaking up sitting is about the pattern across the day, the step total is about the volume. A desk worker can hit 7,000 steps with a morning walk and still spend six unbroken hours seated, and a retail worker can stand all shift and log fewer steps than a commuter. If you train, the walk you take afterward counts twice: it is steps, and it is the cool-down the evidence actually supports.

Where Great Billiom Nattokinase 10,800 FU fits

Steps are muscle, and nothing in a capsule walks for you. Nattokinase belongs to a different part of the day. It is an enzyme from natto, the fermented soybean dish, and its research is about supporting healthy blood flow and circulation over months rather than across a single walk. No nattokinase trial has measured step counts, walking distance or anything else on a pedometer, so this article makes no claim about your step goal on the enzyme's behalf. What the formula is built for is daily circulation support as part of an active lifestyle, and that is how Great Billiom positions it: healthy blood flow, healthy blood viscosity and healthy fibrin metabolism, taken every day, with leg comfort during long travel or sedentary work on the days when the count comes up short.

Great Billiom Nattokinase delivers 10,800 FU per two-capsule serving. That matches the higher dose arm of the largest nattokinase study to date, 1,062 adults followed for 12 months in Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, whose authors note plainly that it "represents a retrospective study and not a randomized control trial." Each serving also carries 180 mcg of vitamin K2 (MK-7) and 240,000 SPU of serrapeptase in delayed-release vegetarian capsules — 90 capsules, 45 servings. The label directs two capsules daily on an empty stomach, at least an hour before or two hours after a meal; many people take theirs before bed. Nattokinase contains soy. Anyone taking an anticoagulant, antiplatelet or blood-pressure medication, anyone pregnant or nursing, and anyone preparing for surgery should talk to their doctor before starting it.

Key takeaways

• The 10,000-step goal started as the name and slogan of a Japanese pedometer sold in 1965, not as a research finding; the scientists who study steps describe it as having "limited scientific basis" (McGill OSS 2018; Lee 2019; Paluch 2022).

• Device-measured cohort studies show the steepest benefit between about 2,000 and 7,000 steps a day: compared with 2,000, 7,000 steps was associated with 47 percent lower all-cause mortality, and the figure at 10,000 was nearly identical (Ding 2025).

• Where the curve flattens depends on age: around 6,000 to 8,000 steps for adults 60 and older and 8,000 to 10,000 for younger adults (Paluch 2022); in women averaging age 72 it leveled near 7,500 (Lee 2019).

• The day's total matters more than pace: once total steps are accounted for, faster cadence added little or nothing in three large studies (Lee 2019; Saint-Maurice 2020; Paluch 2022).

• A 30-minute walk adds roughly 3,000 steps; US adults averaged about 5,100 steps a day by pedometer, so one deliberate walk is often the difference between the flat and steep parts of the curve (Tudor-Locke 2011).

Aim for the part of the curve that pays — about 7,000 steps for most adults, more if you are under 60 and already moving — and let 10,000 be a good day rather than a verdict. If you also want daily support for healthy blood flow and circulation as part of an active lifestyle, Great Billiom Nattokinase 10,800 FU gives you the research-matched dose with K2 MK-7 and serrapeptase in one two-capsule serving.

Frequently asked questions

Do you really need 10,000 steps a day?

No. In the 2025 Lancet Public Health review of 57 studies, 7,000 steps a day was associated with a 47 percent lower risk of death from any cause than 2,000, and the benefit at 10,000 was nearly identical. The curve bends between about 5,000 and 7,000 steps; above that the extra gains are modest for most outcomes.

Where did the 10,000 steps a day goal come from?

From a pedometer. In 1965 the Japanese firm Yamasa Toki sold a step-counter named the Manpo-Kei, meaning "10,000 steps meter," with the slogan "Let's walk 10,000 steps a day." The round number spread from there; researchers writing in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2019 described it as having "limited scientific basis."

How many steps a day should I take at my age?

The 2022 Lancet Public Health meta-analysis of 47,471 adults found risk kept falling until about 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day in people 60 and older and 8,000 to 10,000 in people under 60, then flattened. In women averaging age 72, the curve leveled near 7,500, with measurable benefit starting around 4,400.

Does walking faster count for more than walking further?

Mostly no. In the older-women study and the US adult study, faster stepping looked protective until total steps were accounted for, after which the associations were attenuated and mostly not significant. The 2022 meta-analysis found a residual effect for the fastest 30 minutes of the day, but the total still did most of the work.

Does nattokinase replace walking?

No. No nattokinase trial has measured step counts or walking, so this article makes no such claim. Great Billiom Nattokinase 10,800 FU is daily support for healthy blood flow and circulation as part of an active lifestyle, taken as the label directs. The steps are yours; the research above says about 7,000 is a sound place to aim.

Megan Elliott, Content Editor at Great Billiom. Every claim in this article is sourced from the primary research linked above. Read our editorial standards → thegreatbilliom.com/editorial-standards

Sources

• Ding D, Nguyen B, Nau T, et al. "Daily steps and health outcomes in adults: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis."00164-1) The Lancet Public Health, 2025;10(8):e668–e681.

• University of Sydney. "Rethink the 10,000 a day step goal, study suggests." News release, July 24, 2025.

• Paluch AE, Bajpai S, Bassett DR, et al.; Steps for Health Collaborative. "Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts." The Lancet Public Health, 2022;7(3):e219–e228.

• Saint-Maurice PF, Troiano RP, Bassett DR, et al. "Association of Daily Step Count and Step Intensity With Mortality Among US Adults." JAMA, 2020;323(12):1151–1160.

• Lee IM, Shiroma EJ, Kamada M, Bassett DR, Matthews CE, Buring JE. "Association of Step Volume and Intensity With All-Cause Mortality in Older Women." JAMA Internal Medicine, 2019;179(8):1105–1112.

• Banach M, Lewek J, Surma S, et al. "The association between daily step count and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: a meta-analysis." European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, 2023;30(18):1975–1985.

• Tudor-Locke C, Craig CL, Brown WJ, et al. "How many steps/day are enough? For adults." International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2011;8:79.

• Labos C. "10,000 Steps: Myth or Fact?" McGill University Office for Science and Society, November 29, 2018.

• Chen H, et al. "Effective management of atherosclerosis progress and hyperlipidemia with nattokinase: A clinical study with 1,062 participants." Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, 2022;9:964977.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Individual results may vary.