TUESDAY, Sept. 8, 2026 (HealthDay News) — People with asthma might get as much benefit from increasing their daily step count as they would from a structured aerobic exercise program, a new study says.

Both approaches improve quality of life, alleviate depression and anxiety, and help control asthma, researchers report in the journal Pulmonology.

“However, aerobic training requires more equipment and must be supervised,” lead researcher David Halen Araújo Pinheiro, a physical therapist at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, noted in a news release.

“With simple walking, on the other hand, by increasing the daily number of steps, patients tend to manage their condition and gain other benefits, such as an improved quality of life and reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression,” he said.

Previous studies have found that asthma patients who walk 7,500 steps a day have better control over their asthma, Pinheiro said.

For this new study, researchers recruited 52 patients with uncontrolled asthma who were physically inactive. They were between 18 and 65 years old.

Half were assigned to receive twice-weekly 45-minute aerobic training sessions on a treadmill, under professional supervision.

The other half were given once weekly 90-minute education and counseling sessions, during which they were encouraged to walk more and set weekly step goals. These patients were provided a smartwatch to track their steps.

Each group attended their sessions for eight weeks, after which they were assessed in terms of their asthma and quality of life. Researchers also checked in on them four months later.

“We did that so as not to influence them and to let them go about their daily lives,” Pinheiro said. “After four months, many patients in the aerobic training group reported that they’d joined a gym to use the treadmill, while patients in the behavioral intervention group continued walking as part of their daily routine.”

Both groups wound up with similar benefits regarding asthma control and quality of life, researchers said.

The aerobics group had an average increase of 1,537 steps after the training period, but by follow up they were logging only 983 increased steps.

By comparison, the people encouraged to walk more only had an increase of 1,126 daily steps, but had 996 more steps by the four-month follow-up.

“That was an interesting observation we made,” Pinheiro said. “After four months, the number of steps recorded by the behavioral intervention group was slightly higher than that of the aerobic training group.”

However, he warned that exercise should not be considered an alternative to asthma medications.

“Both aerobic training and behavioral intervention complement medication,” Pinheiro said. “We must never stop taking the treatment prescribed by our doctor.”

More information

The American Lung Association has more on exercise for asthma.

SOURCE: São Paulo State Research Support Foundation, news release, Sept. 2, 2026