The analysis looked at people who took fewer than 8,000 steps per day; most participants took fewer than 5,000. Those who regularly walked longer than 15 minutes were 80 percent less likely to die from any cause and nearly 70 percent less likely to develop cardiovascular disease over a roughly 10-year period, compared with those who got most of their steps in walks of five minutes or less. (The average age of the participants was 62, so the risk of dying was fairly low to begin with: about 4 percent in the shorter-walks group and less than 1 percent in the longer-walks group.)