Modest Exercise Reduces Blood Pressure

In patients with high blood pressure who were previously sedentary, modest increases in physical activity result in meaningful decreases in blood pressure, according to a report in the August issue of the American Journal of Hypertension.

Regular aerobic exercise is recommended for patients with high blood pressure, Dr. Kazuko Ishikawa-Takata, of the National Institute of Health and Nutrition, Tokyo, Japan, and colleagues note. "However, it is not clear how much exercise is needed to reduce blood pressure."

In an 8-week exercise intervention study, the researchers examined the response to exercise training in 207 untreated patients with high blood pressure. The subjects were divided into five groups depending on duration per week of exercise: no regular exercise; 30 to 60 min/week; 61 to 90 min/week; 91 to 120 min/week; and more than 120 min/week.

There were no differences among the groups in terms of age, gender, height, weight, calorie intake, and blood pressure level at the start of the trial.

No changes in blood pressure were observed in the sedentary group. On the other hand, all of the subjects in the exercise groups experienced significant reductions in both systolic blood pressure (the top number in a pressure reading) and diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number in a pressure reading.)

"The magnitude of reductions in systolic blood pressure was greater in the 61 to 90 min/week group compared with the 30 to 60 min/week group," the investigators report. "There were no greater reductions in systolic blood pressure with further increases in exercise volume."

The average exercise duration in the 61 to 90 min/week group was 75 min/week. The reduction in systolic pressure was about 12 mm Hg, and the drop in diastolic about 8 mm Hg.

There were no significant differences in the magnitude of reductions in diastolic blood pressure between the exercising groups.

No obvious associations were found between exercise frequency per week and the magnitude of reductions in blood pressure with exercise training, Dr. Ishikawa-Takata and colleagues found.

They note that guidelines recommend 30 to 60 minutes of exercise on most days, although a recent study found that just one hour of exercise per week halved the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The current findings are consistent with this study and raise the possibility that much smaller amounts of exercise than the amounts recommended by recent guidelines may reduce high blood pressure, the investigators conclude.

"Even 30 to 60 minutes of exercise per week were sufficient" for this purpose, they point out, while stressing that more exercise is warranted "depending on the cardiovascular risk factor of interest."

SOURCE: American Journal of Hypertension, August 2003.

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