Walking and running have about the same health benefits, researchers found – you just have to walk more to get them.

Spending the same amount of energy yielded similar reductions in the risks of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and coronary heart disease, according to Paul Williams, PhD, of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., and Paul Thompson, MD, of Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Conn.

But analysis of two large cohorts suggested that runners usually expend about twice as much energy as walkers and therefore reap greater health benefits, Williams and Thompson reported online in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.

‘The more the runners ran and the walkers walked, the better off they were in health benefits,’ Williams said in a statement. ‘If the amount of energy expended was the same between the two groups, then the health benefits were comparable.’

‘Walking may be a more sustainable activity for some people when compared to running,’ he added. ‘However, those who choose running end up exercising twice as much as those who choose walking … probably because they can do twice as much in an hour.’

Walking and running, the researchers noted, involve the same muscle groups and the same motions, but are performed […]