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Population study: followed a group

Study of 326 lung-disease patients: more steps linked to fewer hospital stays or deaths

Durheim and colleagues · Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2015

Original title: Six-minute-walk distance and accelerometry predict outcomes in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease independent of Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease 2011 Group.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to benefit

Each 1,000 more steps was linked to HR 0.80 for COPD hospital stay or death from any cause.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Population study: followed a group
Who or what was studied
326 people · People with moderate to severe COPD
What was tested
Linked starting steps and walk distance to later hospital stays or death
What it measured
Several kinds of outcomes
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed.
Journal
Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 2015
Source
PubMed record 25568929. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • –Shows a link, not a cause: people chose their own habits, and other differences between them may explain the result.
  • ✓Followed people over time, so habits were recorded before the outcome happened.
  • •326 people.
  • •Measured several kinds of outcomes.
  • •The PubMed record has no conflict-of-interest statement.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: death from any cause

    0

    Not done yet. This is the step that would answer the question.

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  4. Population studies

    10

    9 benefit, 1 no difference

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “How many steps a day lower the risk of early death?”

About 6,000 to 10,000 steps; fewer if older.

Confidence: low. Based on 17 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 9 papers on the same step: 8 benefit, 1 no difference. This one found benefit. It agrees with most of them.

Other papers on the same step

See all 17 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The reviewer corrected 1 field after reading the abstract. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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