An Australian study shows that older people who walk faster have a lower mortality rate than those who walk slower. After five years, the researchers analyzed the relationship between walking speed and mortality among the elderly. The statistical results showed that the average walking speed of the surveyed elderly was 0.88 meters per second, or 3.168 kilometers per hour. Among them, the slowest walkers could only walk 0.15 meters per second, equivalent to 0.54 kilometers per hour; the fastest walkers could walk 1.5 meters per second, equivalent to 5.4 kilometers per hour. During the study period, a total of 266 elderly people died who walked slower than their peers. Survival rate analysis showed that the mortality rate of elderly people who walked faster than 2.95 km/h was nearly 20 percent lower than those who walked slower, and the survival rate was highest for those who walked faster than 4.8 km/h. The study was published by the latest issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) weekly. The follow-up study took five years French researchers had previously done a similar study. They followed 3,200 healthy older people aged 65 years and older, noting the pace of these people. The entire study took five years. A total of 209 people died during the survey, 99 of whom died of cancer and 59 of cardiovascular disease. The researchers found that compared with the fastest walking third of the survey respondents, the slowest third of older adults had a 44 percent higher overall risk of death, a 200 percent higher risk of death from disease and a 300 percent higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease. The researchers said slow walkers are usually older, shorter, have a large height body mass index (BMI), have depressive symptoms, have a low level of education, and exercise less.