Study Reveals Walking 3 Thousand Steps A Day Help Reduce Alzheimer's Risk

Illustration of walking. (Freepic)

JAKARTA - Walking is an easy activity that can be done every day and is of great benefit to the health of the body. Like the latest study in the journal Nature Medicine, it reveals that walking for 3 thousand steps per day can help reduce Alzheimer's risk.

"Significate this finding is that even moderate levels of physical activity are related to differences in brain change related to Alzheimer's," said Harvard Medical School lecturer, as well as lead author in the study, Wai-Ying Wendy Yau, MD, quoted from The Harvard Gazette, Wednesday, November 12, 2025.

The study used data from 296 participants in Harvard Aging Brain Study. Participants who took part in the study were between 50 and 90 years old, and had no cognitive impairment at the start of the study.

The researchers used PET scans to measure the number of amyloid-beta plaques in the participants' brains. This plural is known to have played a major role in the development of Alzheimer's disease.

The participants were monitored for nine years and underwent further brain examination to detect the tau protein, which is another substance closely related to Alzheimer's.

Through the results of the study, it was shown that participants who walked less than 3,000 steps per day and had high amyloid-beta levels, experienced a faster decrease in cognitive function than those who walked 3 thousand to 5 thousand steps per day.

Meanwhile, participants who walk 3 thousand to 5 thousand steps per day can delay a cognitive decline of about three years. Participants running up to 7,500 steps per day can slow down cognitive declines by up to seven years.

This finding shows that we can build cognitive resilience and resistance to tofu pathologies at the preclinical stage of Alzheimer's disease, explained the main co-autotor of the study, Reisa Sperling.

This research provides new hope for many elderly people who have difficulty doing serious activities, but still want to maintain the health of their brains.

"This is very encouraging for our efforts to ultimately prevent dementia due to Alzheimer's disease, as well as reduce dementia caused by various factors," concluded Sperling.