Out of the thousands of news stories you read in the past year, I wonder how many allowed you to make a better decision about a serious matter affecting your life, your work, or your health.

For me, a few come to mind. One was about the benefits of eating sardines or other fatty fish at least twice a week. Another was the potential significant benefit of the flu and shingles vaccines in reducing the risks of cardiovascular disease and dementia.

Perhaps the story that hit home was a paper published in The Lancet that found that hitting roughly 7,000 steps a day caused your risk of premature death to be almost halved.

The study was led by Prof Melody Ding at the University of Sydney, who was in the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin recently to talk about her research. Prof Ding found that achieving 7,000 steps a day causes risk of all-cause mortality to drop by 47%; a 38% lower risk of dementia; a 25% reduction in heart disease; a 22% decrease in symptoms of depression; a 14% drop in incidence of type 2 diabetes, and 28% fewer falls in older adults.

These results are astonishing and beg the question why we are not all taking every opportunity to walk around our communities to maximise our steps? Amazingly, the Department of Transport says that 57% of all journeys under 2km in Ireland are taken by car – as we drive to the shops, drop our kids to school, and sit in endless traffic on our way to work.

Of all the stories I have heard this year, this strikes me as the most profound. It is the one that has caused me to develop a fond respect for my bike and backpack, as I peddle........

© Evening Echo