ALWAYS thought about joining that walking group, but keep putting it off?
Perhaps this will spur you on. A new study has found increasing your daily step count can reduce time spent in hospital.
Researchers from the University of Newcastle discovered walking an extra 40 minutes a day can cut the number of days in hospital for Australians over 55.
People who upped their steps from 4500 to 8800 steps a day spent an average of one less day in hospital every three years the study, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, found.
According to one of the study's authors Benjamin Ewald, even an extra 1000 steps a day would reduce hospital bed days by 9 per cent.
"These steps can be accumulated as many brief activities throughout the day, or as steady walking for about three kilometres," said Mr Ewald.
He said clocking up more steps could be done through activities such as walking to the shops, picking up kids from school or taking the stairs at work.
Fewer than half of Australian adults meet physical activity guidelines of at least 150 minutes of moderately intense activity a week, according to ABS data.
For the study, more than 2100 participants aged over 55 wore pedometers for one week at some point between 2005 and 2007. Their hospital records were analysed for eight years on average from March 2015.
The difference between taking 4500 and 8800 steps every day was 0.36 hospital bed-days a person a year, or about one day every three years of life, the study showed.
The report also found statistically significant reductions in cancer and diabetes admission rates were associated with increasing daily step count, but surprisingly not so for cardiovascular disease.