Managing Cardiometabolic Risk

Exercise and Elevated Blood Pressure

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The evidence appears to be quite consistent regarding the ability of regular aerobic exercise to lower blood pressure (90-95). Exercise has been shown to reduce both systolic and diastolic blood pressure in lean (90, 95), obese (90, 95), hypertensive (90, 93, 94), and normotensive (90, 91, 93) subjects. Some have also suggested that exercise may have a greater anti-hypertensive effect in women than in men (94, 96). Also, any exercise-related reduction in blood pressure may be greater in Asian than in Caucasian subjects (90). Although modest weight loss (3 to 9%) has been shown to significantly reduce blood pressure (97), other studies have reported that exercise can significantly improve blood pressure independent of changes to weight (93, 95). With regard to ideal exercise training parameters, most reports have suggested that low- to moderate-intensity exercise is ideal for lowering blood pressure (90, 94) and that other exercise program parameters (duration, frequency) generally do not have any impact on the level of improvement (90, 95) (98).

Reference

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