Now, one can add another goal to my “Formula of 80”: “Walk 80 hundred steps a day”. Most people in the United States take, on average, 4,000 to 5,000 paces a day.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School have found that older women who took about 7,500 steps a day had the same mortality risk level as their counterparts in the study who walked the entire 10,000 steps.

Nearly 17,000 women with an average age of 72 years were part of the Women’s Health Study, originally created to study the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer among women taking low-dose aspirin and vitamin E.

The women who averaged about 4,400 steps per day were about 40% less likely to die during a four year follow-up period compared to the women who walked 2,700 steps.

A surprising observation was that the benefits of taking more steps seemed to level off at about 7,500 steps per day. How fast or slow participants walked was not associated with a risk of death.

The results were presented last week at the Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine and published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Here is my Formula of 80 to live up to the age of 80 to have healthy parameters.

• Walk 80 minutes a day, brisk walk 80 min a week with a speed of 80 steps (at least) per minute
• Keep lower BP, LDL ‘bad’ cholesterol levels, resting heart rate, fasting sugar and abdominal girth levels less than 80.
• Eat less and not more than 80 gm or ml of caloric food each meal.
• Observe cereal fast 80 days in a year.
• Do not smoke or be ready to shell out Rs. 80,000/- for treatment.
• Do not drink alcohol; if you do, do not consume more than 80 ml daily for men (50% for women) or 80 grams per week. Ten grams of alcohol is present in 30 ml or 1 oz of 80 proof liquor.
• If you are a heart patient, consider 80 mg aspirin and 80 mg atorvastatin a day.
• Keep kidney and lung functions more than 80%.
• Avoid exposure to PM 2.5 and PM 10 levels < 90 mcg/m3.
• Avoid exposure to >80 dB of noise.
• Take vitamin D through sunlight 80 days in a year.
• Do 80 cycles of pranayama (parasympathetic breathing) in a day with a speed of 4 per minute.
• Spend 80 minutes with yourself every day (relaxation, meditation, helping others etc.).

Dr KK Aggarwal

Padma Shri Awardee

President Elect Confederation of Medical Associations in Asia and Oceania   (CMAAO)

Group Editor-in-Chief IJCP Publications

President Heart Care Foundation of India

Past National President IMA