NEW YORK - Being merely moderately fit — walking briskly half an hour a day — can lower the risk of having a stroke, according to a new study whose findings apply to women as well as men.
Much of the previous research on stroke and fitness has been on men and relied on participants to report their physical activity, said Steven Hooker, who heads the University of South Carolina’s Prevention Research Center in Columbia and led the study. About a quarter of those in the new study were women, and everyone had a treadmill test to measure his or her fitness level.