Brisk walking for at least 40 minutes several times every week may significantly reduce the risk of heart failure among older women, a study has found. The benefit appears to be consistent regardless of a woman’s body weight or whether she engages in other forms of exercise besides walking, researchers said.
About 6.5 million adults have heart failure, a condition in which the heart becomes too weak to pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs.
The risk of heart failure rises with age; women 75-84 years of age are three times as likely to have heart failure compared with 65-74 years old. “We already know that physical activity lowers the risk of heart failure, but there may be a misconception that simply walking isn’t enough,” said Somwail Rasla, Brown University in the U.S.
“Walking is not only an accessible form of exercise but almost equal to all other types of exercise that have been studied before in terms of lowering heart failure risk,” said Mr. Rasla.