research review and meta-analysis<\/a> published online Aug. 13, 2026, by the American Journal of Cardiovascular Drugs found that people who regularly climb stairs may have substantially lower risks of developing cardiovascular problems and dying from them.<\/p>\nResearchers evaluated data from nine earlier studies measuring stair climbing that involved a total of 480,479 people ages 35 to 84 (53% women). Participants included both healthy adults and those with existing cardiovascular disease, such as a previous heart attack or peripheral artery disease (narrowed arteries carrying blood from the heart to the legs). The researchers examined whether stair climbing was associated with cardiovascular outcomes (heart attack, stroke, heart failure, and cardiovascular-related death) as well as death from any cause.<\/p>\n
Climbing stairs was associated with a 39% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular problems and a 24% reduced risk of dying from any cause during the respective study periods. People who climbed stairs were also less likely than those who didn\u2019t to experience heart attack, stroke, or heart failure.<\/p>\n
This observational research can\u2019t prove that stair climbing lowers cardiovascular and other death risks \u2014 just that an association exists. And although the analysis did not establish a specific number of flights of stairs per day that people should aim for, it adds to evidence that ordinary activities that briefly raise heart rate can contribute to cardiovascular health. To benefit from this insight, try taking the stairs more often instead of the elevator, since a few flights here and there can add up to meaningful physical activity.<\/p>\n
Image: \u00a9 AnnaZhuk\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taking the stairs whenever you can is a simple way to sneak more vigorous physical activity into your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[499,44060,84677,84673,84674,84676,84678,103,47269,4892,84672,84671,84670,84675,61,60,84669],"class_list":["post-628078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-harvard-health","tag-harvard-health-letter","tag-harvard-health-publications","tag-harvard-health-publishing","tag-harvard-heart-letter","tag-harvard-women","tag-health","tag-health-information","tag-health-news","tag-health-newsletter","tag-health-newsletters","tag-health-report","tag-health-harvard-edu","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-medical-information"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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