Two factors that contribute to chronic diseases like stroke are age and modernity. Experts, however, say that physical activity, such as walking, is one way of promoting cardiovascular health and reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases such as stroke.

All over the world, people’s way of life is being transformed by technological development. Gone are the days people when people walked long distances to the farm, markets or school. It is so easy to move to the main road and wave down a commercial motorcyclist to ride to one’s destination. The leisure walks elderly people take when out on visitation is gone too. Thanks to poor road networks, insecurity on roads and lack of walk ways, many keep to the confines of their homes.

Walking is a cheap exercise, which many can adopt to ensure overall wellbeing and mobility, and actually lifts low spirits by releasing endorphins – the body’s natural ‘painkillers’ – into the bloodstream. Researchers have found that regular walking can significantly ease pain from arthritis, guard against stroke, improve digestion, and support good sleep as well as ensure proper control of blood pressure.

It is well known that physical activity is good for heart health, especially in reducing the risk of stroke. Experts have found out that walking, also a form of exercise, could be an important weapon for women in the fight against stroke. From a new study, they suggested that those women who walked for two or more hours a week had a lower risk of stroke than those who walked for less than two hours a week.

They studied more than 39,000 healthy women aged 45 or older that enrolled in the Women’s Health Study in the United States of America. The women reported their leisure-time physical activity at the start of the study (1992-1995) and periodically during the study.

Women aged 45 to 54 are included in this age range that experts have suggested are three times more likely than men in that age group to have reported to have experience a stroke. In many of the cases, tummy fat appears to be to blame. Tummy fat increases the risk of other risk factors — diabetes, high blood pressure high cholesterol. Together, they drive up the risk of stroke.

There are two risk factors that cannot be changed and which affect both men and women: age and heredity. But there is some good news: for every risk factor that cannot be changed, there are two that can. For instance, obesity, which not only makes the heart work harder, but also raises blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides, and is a precursor to stroke, can be remedied.

Interestingly, the study found out that during an average follow-up of nearly 12 years, 579 women suffered a stroke. There were 473 ischemic strokes - the most common type caused by a blockage or blood clot supplying blood to the brain — and 102 hemorrhagic, or "bleeding," strokes. Four strokes were of an undetermined type.

Overall, the most active women in the study were 17 per cent less apt to suffer a stroke during follow up than the least active women, the researchers found. Compared with women who didn’t walk, women who walked two or more hours a week at any pace cut their risk of any type of stroke by 30 per cent.

Although the researchers pointed out, in the journal Stroke, that the connection between more vigorous forms of physical activity and reduced stroke risk couldn’t be properly examined in the study, the fact was obvious that even in women, walking regularly is necessary to help guard against stroke.

Previous studies have found that active people are 25 per cent to 30 per cent less likely to have a stroke than inactive people. Also, the American Heart Association recommended that adults should do at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity, or 75 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity, aerobic activity.

Professor Sola Ogunniyi, a consultant neurologist at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Oyo state, stated that physical activity, including regular walking, was an important modifiable behavior for stroke prevention.

According to him, "what we preach or tell our patients is that they should have adequate exercise- 30 minutes of brisk walking is useful every day, if possible on most days of the week. We advise that in all of these things, moderation is the key. They should do things that make them feel well, not to the point of exertion. If 30 minutes is good enough, do it and then go back to rest. This will reduce their risk of not only stroke, but also cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and being fat. It would make them healthy."

Professor Ogunniyi said walking should be regarded as one of the lifestyle changes or modifications that people should take to for a healthy life.

He described belly or tummy fat as a common yardstick for determining those that are fat. According to him, "More recently, people talk about waist to hip ratio as a measure of obesity or being overweight. The more the waist to hip ratio, the higher the chances of obesity. We have values that are different for both genders. So, if a person has more fat around their abdomen, which is very easy to see, then they may be at risk of developing some of these chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes, obesity and so on."