Learn how the benefits of exercise can help lower your blood pressure… and your subsequent risk of heart attack and stroke

The benefits of exercise are huge, and if you have hypertension, it just might save your life! Regular exercise strengthens the heart and helps normalize blood pressure. Because it increases insulin sensitivity and stabilizes blood-glucose levels, it is one of the most effective treatments for insulin resistance, which often heralds hypertension.

Exercise also improves the ratio of body fat to lean muscle mass and supports weight loss. Regular exercise considerably decreases the risk of atherosclerosis and high blood pressure – and these are only its heart-related benefits.

Exercise also brings back your metabolism to youthful levels, fortifies your bones, and prevents muscle atrophy.

The benefits of exercise include:

Improved cardio-respiratory function

Improved metabolism

Better control of blood fats

Improved oxygen delivery/metabolic processes

When using exercise as a drug to treat hypertension, it is important to set a goal of at least one hour per day ... every day. Obviously, depending on your current condition you may need to slowly work up to this level.

Whether you are overweight or trim, have hypertension or normal blood pressure, engaging in regular exercise such as walking, cycling, jogging or swimming can help lower your blood pressure and your subsequent risk of heart attack and stroke.

A review of 54 clinical trials involving 2,419 previously sedentary adults concluded that regular exercise decreased systolic blood pressure -- the upper number in a blood-pressure reading -- by an average of 4 mm of mercury (mmHg) and diastolic blood pressure, the bottom number, by an average of 2.6 mmHg.

The new findings offer more evidence that exercise is important both for treating high blood pressure and preventing the condition from developing in healthy people. In addition to the cardiovascular risks, high blood pressure also can damage the kidneys, eyes and brain. Blood pressure is considered elevated if the reading is 140/90 or higher.

Statistics show that about 25% of US adults have high blood pressure and up to 30% are sedentary. While the study did not identify an ideal amount of exercise for lowering blood pressure, results showed that a variety of types of aerobic exercise at all frequencies were beneficial to people who were previously sedentary. In other words, some activity was better than none.


Exercise Helps Blood Flow in Arteries

Physicians generally accept the idea that exercise promotes cardiovascular health. Physical exercise increases coronary blood flow, resulting in increased shear stress on the surface of the endothelium, the layer of cells lining blood vessels. By boosting the function of the cells that line arteries, exercise training can boost blood flow to the heart in people with coronary artery disease. Exercise has positive effects on the endothelium.


Hypertension and exercise

Hypertension or high blood pressure, a common disease in industrial societies, has reached epidemic proportions. Hypertension is defined as blood pressure equal to or greater than 140/90 mmHg. Thus, hypertension can result from increased systolic pressure (the first number of the two values), diastolic pressure (the second number) or both. Individuals with a blood pressure reading over 160/95 mmHg have a 150 to 300 percent higher annual incidence rate of coronary artery disease (CAD), chronic heart failure, cramping pain and weakness in the legs and stroke than individuals with normal blood pressure (ACSM, 1993).

Dynamic exercise (which consists of alternating muscle contraction and relaxation, such as in walking, running and cycling) produces a different blood pressure response than static or resistance exercise (in which the muscle contraction is held for more than a few seconds before relaxing, such as in strength training and isometric exercise).

During dynamic exercise the systolic rate should rise steadily as exercise intensity increases, while the diastolic rate should vary minimally. During vigorous dynamic exercise, a typical systolic rate range is between 160 mmHg and 220 mmHg.


Exercise as Therapy

Studies have also indicated exercise training lowers blood pressure in individuals with essential hypertension and those taking hypertensive medications. Stewart (2000) cites studies by Arroll and Beaglehole (1992) as well as Kelly and McClellan (1994) which show moderate intensity exercise can reduce both systolic and diastolic blood pressure by 7 mmHg.

A review by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) demonstrated that in 70 percent of all exercising subjects, blood pressure lowered an average of 10.5/8.6 mm Hg from an average starting level of 154/98 mmHg (Hagberg, 1995). Additionally, Renolds, et al., (2002) concluded that in a population of older hypertensive females, aerobic exercise training improved insulin sensitivity and lowered blood pressure without a reduction in plasma tumor necrosis factor (TNF) levels.

This response can linger up to nine hours post exercise. Blood pressure changes can be seen as early as three weeks to three months after initiating exercise training, with the maximum blood pressure decrease reached after three months.

Although blood pressure can be reduced through exercise, it only lasts as long as endurance training is continued. In order to manage hypertension, individuals should make lifestyle modifications in conjunction with exercise training... weight reduction if overweight. Studies have associated an 8 mmHg/day reduction with a 5 mmHg systolic blood pressure (SBP) and 3 mmHg diastolic blood pressure (DBP) decrease.


Regular exercise is a key to lowering your blood pressure

Can regular exercise training prevent hypertension from developing or help treat it once acquired? The answer to both of these questions is yes, with researchers now concluding that exercise is a powerful weapon against high blood pressure.

When a person walks briskly, cycles, jogs, swims, or engages in other aerobic activities, the blood pressure rises. Over time, as the exercise is repeated, there is growing evidence that a long-lasting reduction in resting blood pressure can be experienced.

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) in a recent position stand on exercise and hypertension concluded that people with mild hypertension can expect both systolic and diastolic blood pressure to fall an average of 10 mmHg in response to regular aerobic exercise.

How quickly does the resting blood pressure fall? Most studies show that exercise training acts quickly to improve blood pressure among hypertensives, with most of the effect taking place within the first few weeks.

Exercise alone without drugs resulted in an impressive 8 mm Hg drop in the diastolic blood pressure, with drug therapy adding some extra benefit. Soon after stopping exercise training, however, blood pressure quickly returns to its initial untrained level. In other words, the blood pressure-lowering effect of exercise training depends on a regular schedule of activity.

ACSM does not recommend weight training as the only form of exercise for hypertensives. Weight training does not appear to be as effective in lowering blood pressure as aerobic exercise.


Moderate exercise versus usual routine

The Johns Hopkins team assessed the reasons to exercise of a supervised program of exercise training, measuring heart function, body fitness, and fat levels at the beginning and end of the study. Half were randomly placed in a moderate exercise program, while the rest maintained their usual physical routine and diet. Moderate exercise was defined as exertion for approximately 60 minutes, three times a week.

Exercise did not produce an increase in the size of the heart. Each point gain in aerobic fitness, as measured by peak oxygen uptake during exercise, translated to a 1.5 percent improvement in a key measure used to measure diastolic heart function.


Heart like an athlete’s

Unlike the increased heart size that results from high blood pressure, increased heart size observed in the exercise group was similar to that which athletes experience when their hearts get bigger and stronger, not stiffer. Aerobic fitness increased by 17 percent, as did average strength. The group that did not exercise had either no or significantly less improvement than the exercising group.

Moderate-intensity exercise can have many health benefits, including gains in heart function that are linked to increased fitness and reduced body fat.The vast majority of older people with mildly elevated blood pressure can benefit from moderate exercise, and they should talk about it with their physician to determine an appropriate exercise program.


Moderate-intensity exercise results in a variety of health benefits

Participating in moderate-intensity exercise, even among senior adults who have mildly high blood pressure will result in a variety of health benefits. Once the body has adapted to the higher level of exercise it will function more effectively and efficiently.