Abstract
Daily exercise is effective in reduction of blood pressure in hypertension. Although there have been many reports of this effect of exercise under medical intervention, there have been few reports of the association between long-term daily physical activity and blood pressure. Therefore we investigated the relationship between daily exercise and blood pressure over a duration of six years. We investigated 2, 070 Japanese employees of a certain company aged 18-65 years, who undergo a group-physical examination once a year, that have undergone the physical examination both in 1994 and in 2000. Among them we enrolled 754 individuals aged 40-65 years at study entry. We used a questionnaire to survey daily physical activity.
A total of 204 middle-aged mild hypertensive subjects were enrolled. Among them 24.5% of the subjects reported being physically active. However only 8.8% of the subjects reported exercising not only for more than 30 minutes but also more than once or twice a week. In this group both systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) significantly decreased over the duration of six years. However, SBP and DBP in exercise group, who underwent exercise for less than 30 minutes, did not change significantly.
In conclusion, from this study daily exercise of both over 30 minutes and more than once or twice a week results in the reduction of blood pressure for middle-aged mild hypertensive over a long-term observation.
