Walking at a faster pace is tied to a lower risk of developing heart failure (HF), according to a new observational study conducted in postmenopausal women.

Researchers tracked more than 25,000 women aged 50 to 70 years for a median of around 17 years. They evaluated a subset of postmenopausal women who were a part of the Womens Health Initiative (WHI) cohort between 1993 and 1998 (N = 25,183, mean [SD] age 62.6 [7.2] years) with no history of HF or cancer. In comparison with women who walked at a casual pace, those walking at an average or fast pace were shown to have a 27% and 34% lower risk of HF, respectively. Even a short duration of fast walking, even less than 1 hour a week, was correlated with the same amount of reduction in the risk for HF, compared to double that amount of average or casual walking. The findings are published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society… (Medscape)