Physical Activity Frequency and Risk of Incident Stroke in a National US Study of Blacks and Whites

Background and Purpose—Regular physical activity (PA) is an important recommendation for stroke prevention. We compared the associations of self-reported PA with incident stroke in the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study.

Methods—REGARDS recruited 30 239 US blacks (42%) and whites, aged ≥45 years with follow-up every 6 months for stroke events. Excluding those with prior stroke, analysis involved 27 348 participants who reported their frequency of moderate to vigorous intensity PA at baseline according to 3 categories: none (physical inactivity), 1 to 3×, and ≥4× per week. Stroke and transient ischemic attack cases were identified during an average of 5.7 years of follow-up. Cox proportional hazards models were constructed to examine whether self-reported PA was associated with risk of incident stroke. Read More