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Walking helps reduce incidence of functional limitation in individuals with or at risk of knee osteoarthritis, over two years, according to a new study.

"Walking >6,000 steps per day provides a preliminary estimate of the level of walking activity to protect against developing functional limitation in people with or at risk of knee osteoarthritis," the authors wrote. 

Researchers examined if walking on its own protected against the development of functional limitation in a cohort of 1,788 people with mean age 67 years, with or at risk of knee osteoarthritis. 

Walking was measured as steps per day over seven days, and the correlation between steps per day at baseline and developing functional limitation two years later was assessed, the press release mentioned. 

Researchers observed that each additional 1,000 steps per day correlated with a 16 and 18 percent reduction in incident functional limitation, based on performance-based and self-report measures, respectively. 

The best thresholds to distinguish incident functional limitation were <6,000 steps per day for performance-based measures (sensitivity, 67.3 percent; specificity, 71.8 percent) and <5,900 steps per day for self-report measures (sensitivity, 58.7 percent; specificity, 68.9 percent), the press release added.

The study was published in the Arthritis Care & Research.