Brisk Walking May Slash Stroke Risk

In that physical activity has found by several studies to inversely correlate to the risk of developing stroke, Jacob R. Sattelmair, from Harvard School of Public Health (Massachusetts, USA), and colleagues examined the effects of a variety of leisure-time activities among women.  Studying data on 39,315 healthy American women, ages 45 years and over, enrolled in the Women's Health Study, the team investigated the subjects’ physical activity at the study’s start and at five points during a follow-up period of nearly 12 years, and tracked the incidence of stroke during the same timeframe. The researchers found that those women who engaged in moderately intense were at a markedly lower risk of stroke, whereby walking time and pace was inversely related to the risk of any stroke, ischemic stroke, and hemorrhagic stroke. Stroke risk declined by as much as 37% as the pace of walking increased from less than 2 to over 3 miles/hour. Writing that:  “This study shows a tendency for leisure-time physical activity to be associated with lower stroke risk in women,” the team concludes that: “In particular, walking was generally associated with lower risks of total, ischemic, and hemorrhagic stroke.”