Not Weight, Not BMI: This Health Metric Is A Strong Indicator Of Death Risk

At a regular checkup, a doctor might calculate your body mass index (BMI), but this certainly doesn't provide a full picture of your health. In terms of mortality risk, there are other factors to consider, including blood pressure, cholesterol, and resting heart rate as an important indicator of heart health. The amount you exercise on a regular basis can provide additional clues, but there are also possible connections between activities like walking and mortality. Some studies even suggest that walking speed may be linked with a person's overall death risk, with faster paces connected with decreased mortality.

It's no secret that walking is great for your health and well-being. Walking is considered one of the more accessible forms of exercise, and it's known to lower your risk of heart disease and help with stress management. The role of walking in your overall cardiovascular health is undoubtedly important, as heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the U.S., per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Research has also shown that walking may even improve outcomes for pre-existing conditions like heart disease, dementia, and diabetes in older adults.

Over the last several years though, researchers have started to investigate more details about how humans might best benefit from this common form of exercise. One example is daily step count. According to a study published in 2021 in JAMA Network Open, middle-aged adults who took more than 7,000 steps each day had lower death rates compared with those who regularly took fewer than this amount. While more steps throughout the day is generally recognized as being good for your health, it turns out that gradually increasing your speed during your walks may also be protective, too.

A fast walking speed is often referred to as "brisk walking," which is a pace of 3 miles per hour or more. According to the American Heart Association, brisk walking for a total of at least 150 minutes per week can be protective for both your heart and brain. To this end, studies are pointing to how the ability to walk fast may translate to reduced risk of early mortality. One example is a 2009 prospective cohort study in The BMJ, which evaluated the impacts of low walking speeds in 3,208 older adults living in France. After a 5.1-year average timeline, the researchers noted that the adults who walked slower experienced a threefold increased risk of death from cardiovascular issues compared to those with faster walking speeds. Faster walking may also be connected with better quality of life in older adults, per research published in the Annals of Epidemiology in 2024.

Furthermore, walkers don't necessarily have to walk at a brisk pace for several hours at a time to reap these health benefits. According to a 2025 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, adults who walked fast for only 15 minutes per day experienced almost a 20% reduction in all-cause mortality. This was compared to a 4% reduction associated with more than 3 hours of slow walking per day. Separate research also found that adults who died of cardiovascular or respiratory diseases were more likely to have slower walking speeds, per the Journal of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine.

Despite the wealth of studies that connect walking speed with death risk, it's important to not let speed (or lack thereof) hold you back from walking. The ability to walk at a more intense pace can indicate your overall fitness level and be protective against premature death. However, the number of steps you take in a given day is also important. Interestingly, while the aforementioned JAMA Network Open study found the importance of taking at least 7,000 steps per day, the authors did not find any meaningful connection between speed and mortality among the participants. The key here is to balance the two facets of walking by ensuring you get enough steps in your day while being able to take some of them at a quicker pace.

Finally, the frequency of walking is another contributor to health and longevity. As the Mayo Clinic notes, a lack of movement throughout the day is associated with a reduced lifespan, as well as numerous long-term health concerns, such as joint pain, blood vessel conditions, and metabolic disorders. No matter what your specific walking goals, it's important to talk with a doctor about how to safely increase both your step count and your speed on a gradual basis as you get stronger. While fitness watches are great tracking tools, here's another way you can convert miles walked to mph to estimate your overall pace.