Brisk walkers live up to 20 years longer than slow walkers. A 2019 study in Mayo Clinic Proceedings used data from 474,919 UK Biobank participants and found that walking pace was a stronger predictor of life expectancy than body weight. The study found that women who reported a brisk walking pace had a life expectancy of about 87 years, regardless of their BMI. Women who reported a slow walking pace had a life expectancy of about 72 years. For men, the gap was 86 versus 65. The difference between a brisk walker and a slow walker was larger than the difference between a normal-weight person and an obese person. The gap held after adjusting for smoking, alcohol, diet, and physical activity levels. Walking pace was not just a marker of general health. It carried independent predictive power, meaning it told the researchers something about longevity that no other variable in the dataset captured. Walking pace reflects the same bundle of systems that gait speed studies have measured for decades: cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength, neurological coordination, and respiratory capacity. All of these decline in midlife, and all of them show up in how fast a person walks. The body that walks briskly is a body whose systems are still working well together. The question is not whether you walk. It is whether you could keep up with someone who is in a hurry. A comfortable stroll and a brisk pace are two different prescriptions, and the data from nearly half a million people says the pace is what matters. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3107…