Women who take brisk walks are likely to have reduced chances of suffering from a stroke, a new study has revealed.

Walking for two or more hours a week were also 30 percent less likely to suffer a stroke than those who said they rarely walked very far, found Harvard researchers.

A casual walking pace is normally around two miles an hour they said and more than four miles and hour is very brisk.

Telegraph. co. uk quoted Lead author Jacob Sattelmair, doctoral candidate in epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, America, as saying, "For a brisk pace, you should be able to talk but not able to sing. If you cannot talk, slow down a bit. If you can sing, walk a bit faster."

He further said, "Physical activity, including regular walking, is an important modifiable behavior for stroke prevention. Physical activity is essential to promoting cardiovascular health and reducing risk of cardiovascular disease, and walking is one way of achieving physical activity."

Sattelmair further added, "Though the exact relationship among different types of physical activity and different stroke subtypes remains unclear, the results of this specific study indicate that walking, in particular, is associated with lower risk of stroke."

The journal Stroke has published the results of the study. (With Inputs from Agencies)