Elsevier

American Heart Journal

Volume 151, Issue 6, June 2006, Pages 1322.e5-1322.e12
American Heart Journal

Clinical Investigation
Hypertension
The influence of short and long duration on the blood pressure response to an acute bout of dynamic exercise

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ahj.2006.03.010Get rights and content

Background

The minimum duration of exercise needed to acutely lower blood pressure (BP) has not been established. The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of short and long duration on the BP response to a session of aerobic exercise.

Methods

Subjects were 45 men (mean ± SEM, 43.4 ± 1.5 years) with elevated BP (144.6 ± 1.6/85.2 ± 1.1 mm Hg). Using a parallel design, men were randomly assigned to 40% (LITE, n = 23) or 60% (MOD, n = 22) of maximal oxygen consumption. Following assignment, they completed 3 experiments: a no-exercise control, and a 15-minute SHORT and 30-minute LONG cycle bout. Subjects left the laboratory wearing an ambulatory BP monitor. Repeated measure analysis of variance tested if BP differed among experimental conditions (no-exercise control, LONG, and SHORT) and over time within groups (LITE and MOD).

Results

For 9 hours, systolic BP increased from baseline after all conditions (P < .001); however, systolic BP was reduced by 5.6 ± 2.0 and 4.3 ± 1.6 mm Hg after SHORT and LONG with LITE, and 4.1 ± 1.6 and 4.9 ± 1.9 mm Hg with MOD, respectively, compared with no-exercise control (P < .05). For 9 hours, diastolic BP (DBP) decreased from baseline after all conditions (P < .001). DBP was reduced by 2.1 ± 1.0 and 3.6 ± 1.4 mm Hg after SHORT and LONG with MOD for 3 hours (P < .05), and average DBP was lower by 2.4 ± 1.0 mm Hg after LONG with LITE for 9 hours versus no-exercise control (P < .05).

Conclusions

The immediate BP-lowering effects of short-duration, lower intensity exercise are comparable to those of higher amounts of exercise. Additional investigation is needed to better quantify the dose of exercise needed to lower BP.

Section snippets

Subjects

Volunteers were 45 men between the ages of 18 and 55 years with high normal to stage 1 HTN (systolic BP [SBP] ≥130 and <160 mm Hg and/or diastolic BP [DBP] ≥85 and <100 mm Hg). Other than high BP, all subjects were in good health without evidence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, asthma, thyroid dysfunction, pancreatitis, cancer, infection/inflammation, or acute illness of any sort. They were nonsmokers and had no physical limitations that precluded exercise. Subjects completed an

Subjects

Study participants (N = 45) were white men with a mean age of 43.4 ± 1.5 years, an orientation ambulatory awake BP of 144.6 ± 1.6/85.2 ± 1.1 mm Hg, and an experimental baseline stabilization period BP of 126.4 ± 1.0/86.8 ± 0.7 mm Hg (Table I). Subjects were overweight and had below average physical fitness for men of their age.28 Nearly half (46.0%) of the men reported a family history of HTN, and 5 men in the LITE and MOD groups discontinued antihypertensive or hyperlipidemic medications or

Discussion

We compared the effects of SHORT- and LONG-duration, endurance exercise on PEH using a parallel study design among 2 different groups of white, middle-aged overweight men with high normal to stage 1 HTN. The new and important findings from this investigation are that SHORT- and LONG-duration, lower intensity exercise reduced SBP by approximately 4 to 6 mm Hg for the remainder of the awake hours compared with the no-exercise days. The DBP-lowering capacities of SHORT-duration exercise tended to

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  • Cited by (0)

    This study was supported by an American Heart Association grant-in-aid no. 0150507N.

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