By michael - January, 14th 2014

According to study, walking may be as good as running. It’s a gentle, low-impact form of exercise that’s easy, free and suitable for people of all ages and most abilities.

Walking really is just as good for you as running – but only if you compare it in terms of calories burned and not merely on time spent, researchers reported on Thursday.

Studies have gone back and forth on the question for years – is a stroll as good as a run? Does a brisk walk strengthen your heart as much as a pounding jog?

Paul Williams of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and Paul Thompson of Hartford Hospital in Connecticut think they’ve answered the question, finally. They did it in the best way possible, by comparing tens of thousands of runners to tens of thousands of walkers.

The answer is what common sense would dictate – it’s how much a person exercises in terms of energy spent, not how long he or she spends exercising, that matters.

“It takes longer to walk a mile than to run a mile. But if you …

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