A study of nearly 5,000 people found a link between higher scores on the step counter and lower death risk over a given time period.

The more steps a person takes each day, the lower their risk seems to be of dying of heart problems, cancer and other diseases — regardless of how intensively they walk.

Most previous studies examining the link between step count and death focused on people who were old or ill. But Pedro Saint-Maurice at the US National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and his colleagues studied a diverse group of 4,840 adults who wore accelerometer devices from 2003 to 2006 to measure physical activity.

Using death certificates, researchers determined which participants had died by the end of 2015. The team found that people who took 8,000 or 12,000 steps per day had a 51% and 65% lower death risk over the study period, respectively, than those who took 4,000 steps per day. But participants’ number of steps per minute didn’t seem to influence mortality risk.

Because the team only tracked participants rather than intervening to control their walking habits, the results do not provide conclusive evidence that a greater number of daily steps cuts risk of death for a given time, the authors say.