Adults who habitually climbed stairs were about 39% less likely to die of cardiovascular disease than adults who climbed them less often, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis of nine studies and 480,479 people published on August 13 in the American Journal of Cardiovascular Drugs. The work came from researchers at the University of East Anglia and Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, who screened nearly 1,900 studies before pooling the nine they judged high quality.
The same analysis linked stair climbing to about 24% lower risk of dying from any cause.
Key takeaways
- Cardiovascular death was about 39% lower in habitual stair climbers (relative risk 0.61), very likely between 21% and 52% lower.
- Death from any cause was about 24% lower (relative risk 0.76), with a range running from as little as 6% to as much as 38% lower.
- Every pooled study was observational, so this shows an association, not proof that stairs caused the lower death rate.
What the study found
The pooled group covered 480,479 adults across nine studies. Median follow-up was 14 years.
For cardiovascular death, the reduction was about 39% (relative risk 0.61, 95% CI 0.48 to 0.79), and there is less than a 1 in 1,000 chance that a result this strong came from coincidence alone (p = 0.0002). For death from any cause, the reduction was about 24% (relative risk 0.76, 95% CI 0.62 to 0.94), with roughly a 1 in 100 chance of coincidence (p = 0.01). That second range is worth noting: the true benefit could be as small as 6%.
Stair climbers also had lower rates of heart attack, ischemic stroke and heart failure, the researchers reported.
One large cohort study inside the analysis suggested that climbing around six flights of stairs per day may deliver the greatest benefit, though the team said the optimal dose still needs work.
“Taking the stairs is a practical and often overlooked way to build physical activity into daily life,” said Professor Vassilios Vassiliou of UEA’s Norwich Medical School in the university release. “We wanted to better understand how this everyday activity could have life-saving potential.”
Dr. Kumar’s take
The biggest problem with this result is baked into its design. The review accepted randomized controlled trials or observational studies that included stair climbing as a variable, and observational data cannot separate stair climbing from the health that lets someone climb stairs. People with early heart failure, bad angina, severe COPD or advancing frailty stop taking stairs years before they die. So the group labeled “climbs stairs” is, in part, the group that was already well enough to climb stairs. That is textbook reverse causation, and it inflates any mortality benefit you measure.
A 39% drop in cardiovascular death against a 24% drop in overall death is a very large signal for an activity that takes a few minutes a day. Fitness-linked selection explains that gap at least as well as the stairs do.
The full paper sits behind a publisher login, so the figures above come from the published abstract and the university release. Those report relative risks only, so the real-world size of the benefit, in deaths per 1,000 people, is not pinned down anywhere public.
None of that makes stair climbing a bad idea. It makes the 39% a ceiling, not an estimate.
What it means for you
Take the stairs. The downside is close to zero for most people, it costs nothing, and short bursts of effort do improve fitness. The researchers themselves note that stair climbing may not suit people with mobility problems or joint conditions, and that is a real limit, not a footnote.
What you should not do is treat stairs as a substitute for the things with randomized evidence behind them: blood pressure control, cholesterol management, not smoking, and structured aerobic activity. Nearly 9 in 10 US heart disease deaths are preventable, and the levers that do the preventing are mostly the boring ones. If you are already on treatment for cardiovascular risk, this study changes nothing about that plan, including newer options like tirzepatide and its effect on heart attack and death risk.
Six flights a day is a reasonable target if you want a number. Just hold it loosely, because it comes from a single cohort inside the pool, not from the pooled result.