Exercise helps lower blood pressure - Research Update - Brief Article

Melpomene Journal, Spring-Summer, 2002

March 18, 2002

A new study finds exercise not only lowers blood pressure during the immediate post-exercise period, but it also maintains those lower pressures for nearly a day.

Studies have shown exercise significantly lowers blood pressure for a short period after the exercise has been completed, but doctors have not been sure whether this lower pressure can be maintained. They also have not fully understood how exercise produces this effect.

Researchers studied 24 elderly patients with high blood pressure and 18 elderly people without high blood pressure. All of the participants took part in a low-intensity, 45-minute exercise session during which they rode a stationary bicycle, and then had various tests to determine the effect on blood pressure and other physiologic factors.

The study showed exercise lowers blood pressure by having a positive effect on a number of important factors related to good cardiac health and maintained those lower pressures and positive benefits over a 22-hour period. The researchers write, "Low-intensity dynamic exercise should be strongly recommended to elderly hypertensive patients"

Ivanhoe News, 2002 Research source: Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2002;39:676-682