A new U.S. study shows that walking more can reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome, and the more you walk, the better the results. The research paper was published in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center reported that they conducted a study involving 14,000 adults between 2005 and 2006, with the average age of participants being 47.5 years. The researchers had the participants wear pedometers in order to find out how much they walked each day. Based on the amount of walking, the participants were divided into three groups: the first group was the “sedentary” type, who walked less than 5,000 steps per day; the second group was the “hypermobile” type, who walked between 5,000 and 9,999 steps per day; and the third group was the “hyperactive” type. The third group was the “hyperactive” type, who walked more than 10,000 steps per day. The researchers found that about one-third of all participants suffered from metabolic syndrome. Nearly 56 percent of the “sedentary” participants had the disease, while only 13 percent of the “hyperactive” participants had it. After taking into account other influencing factors such as gender and age, the researchers concluded that compared to “sedentary” people, “hypermobile” people were 40 percent less likely to develop metabolic syndrome, while “hyperactive” people were 40 percent less likely to develop the disease. “people suffer from this chronic disease to 72% lower chances. The researchers said the results of this study only show that there is a certain association between walking and the chance of developing metabolic syndrome, but does not indicate that there is a direct causal relationship between the two. Metabolic syndrome is a pathological condition in which multiple metabolic components are abnormally clustered, including abdominal obesity or overweight, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high triglycerides and low HDL. People with metabolic syndrome will have a significantly higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease as well as diabetes. It is estimated that about one-third of adults in the United States are afflicted with metabolic syndrome.