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His patients ask cardiologist Christopher Labos about the 10,000-steps-a-day doctrine all the time, that seemingly magical number built into fitness trackers adorning millions of torsos, wrists and ankles worldwide.

Labos recently wondered, where does the trendy target come from and is it backed by real science?

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According to Labos, who also has a degree in epidemiology, “There’s no real evidence that the 10,000 steps threshold actually means anything.”

The slogan can be traced to Japanese walking clubs and a marketing campaign circa the 1960s. In 1965, a Japanese company released a commercial pedometer, which they called Manpo-Kei — kei, meaning meter, and manpo, 10,000 steps.

It was based on the work of academic Dr. Yoshiro Hatano, who, concerned with rising rates of obesity, found that the average Japanese citizen took between 3,500 and 5,000 steps a day. Hatano calculated that increasing the number to 10,000 would be associated with a reduction in blood pressure and glucose levels, lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease.