Having high blood pressure can put you at risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, but a new study says exercise may be just as effective as drugs at decreasing hypertension.
The findings on exercise and hypertension
New research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine compared data from 194 clinical trials focusing on the impact of drugs on high blood pressure and 197 trials focused on the effects of structured exercise on high blood pressure. Statistics from a total of 39.742 participants were included in the research.
The team found that, for the general population (which included both healthy individuals and those with high blood pressure), antihypertensive drugs were more effective at lowering blood pressure. But when studying only people with high blood pressure, they found that exercise was just as effective.
Specifically, the best effects came from a combination of endurance and dynamic resistance training.
Warning: Don’t assume it’s safe to stop your medications
A word of caution: people with high blood pressure shouldn’t stop taking their medications just because they’ve started exercising.
“We don’t think, on the basis of our study, that patients should stop taking their antihypertensive medications,” says Dr. Huseyin Naci of the Department of Health Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. “But we hope that our findings will inform evidence-based discussions between clinicians and their patients.”
The researchers caution that more studies need to be done to ensure they can replicate their results.
In addition, Dr. Naci points out that doctors can’t always ensure that their patients are adhering to their prescribed exercise routine.
“It’s one thing to recommend that physicians start prescribing exercising to their patients,” says Dr. Naci, “but we also need to be cognizant of the resource implication and ensure that the patients that have been referred to exercise interventions can adhere to them and so really derive benefit.”
