Women: Want to Avoid Heart Failure? Try Walking

New research suggests that women who exercise regularly, including walking, may lower their risk for heart failure. The study from researchers at the University of Buffalo in New York looked at over 137,000 women aged 50-79, of which over one-third had high blood pressure and other heart disease risk factors such as smoking and diabetes. After a follow-up period of 14 years, researchers found that the women who got some form of physical activity were less likely to suffer from heart failure (11%). Women with the highest levels of physical activity, meanwhile, were the least likely to suffer from heart failure (35%), as compared to women who got no exercise at all. In addition, women who got the most physical activity were the least likely to develop a sub-type of heart failure called reduced ejection fraction (32%) as compared to women who never exercised. 33% of the same group of women were also the least likely to develop another sub-type of heart failure called a preserved ejection fraction. One of the biggest findings from the study, however, is that walking works just as well as other forms of exercise, including more vigorous types. To discover how much exercise the women got, researchers studied answers to a questionnaire about exercise that every participant completed. As it turns out, walking was the most common type of physical activity reported.