For how we live.
Across 29 studies the overall effect on chronic back pain was not significant. Split by whether the current was strong enough to be clearly felt, one subgroup showed a large effect and the other none.
Cochrane found a clinically important 15.2-point pain reduction across 249 trials. A reanalysis excluding trials with fewer than 70 participants put the effect below the threshold that counts as meaningful.
A meta-analysis of 116 randomised trials found weight, waist and body fat falling steadily up to 300 minutes a week. In one 24-week trial, 48% of participants compensated by about 308 kcal a day.
A dose-response meta-analysis of 94 cohorts and more than 30 million people found the steepest part of the curve sits between zero and the recommended weekly dose, with small and uncertain gains above double it.
A 2025 meta-analysis of 57 studies found the mortality curve bending at about 7,000 steps a day. The 10,000 figure traces to the trade name of a Japanese step counter sold in 1965.
Three cohorts, 147,374 people, 30 years and 35,798 deaths. The dose-response curve flattened above 120 minutes per week, and the cancer signal appeared at the low end, not the high end.