Exercise lowers blood pressure!

Can you “ease” your high blood pressure with an investment of just two hours a week? Read the results of this exciting new study …

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE. If your numbers aren’t 140/90 or less, you have it. What do you get with that? A vastly increased risk of stroke (high blood pressure is the number one cause of this disabling condition) and heart disease.

The good news is that many studies have shown that a combination of exercise, stress reduction, and a change in eating habits can reduce that pressure just as well as these medications.

Now there is even better news. A groundbreaking new study offers conclusive proof that just participating in a regular exercise program can lower your numbers enough to make those medications unnecessary.

Do you have 2 hours a week?

That’s all I need. The researchers started with 27 men who were overweight, out of shape, and with mild hypertension, weaned them off whatever blood pressure medication they were taking, and divided them into two groups.

One group did the actual exercise: a half hour of “brisk walking,” jogging, and / or stationary cycling four times a week at 65 to 80 percent of their maximum heart rate.

The men in the other group did a sham exercise. They did “slow calisthenics and stretches” for the same amount of time, but their heart rate stayed below 60 percent of maximum.

Heart rates were carefully monitored in both groups of men so that the researchers could be sure that the real athletes kept theirs above 65 percent and those who did the sham training below 60 percent. (If they went outside of those ranges, an alarm sounded!) This “exercise intensity test” makes this study quite unique.

And the results?

At the end of 6 weeks, you could see a significant difference in the two groups. The men who did the actual exercise had their diastolic (bottom) reading lowered by an average of more than 6 points.

At the end of the 10 weeks, it was down almost 10 points; from a mean of 94.8 to a mean of 85.2. Those who did the sham training saw their diastolic reading go up: from 93.7 to 94.4.

Systolic, the highest reading, dropped 6 points in real athletes from an average of 136.6 to 130.2. For fake users, it went up from 134.9 to 135.8.

Or, as the researchers put it, 9 out of 10 men in the real exercise group lowered their diastolic reading to less than the magic 90. All of the men who did the sham exercises were 90 or higher.

As the researchers explain, previous studies on the effects of exercise on blood pressure have yielded all kinds of results. But this one has several edges.

The researchers monitored the men’s exercise levels like never before and insisted they make no changes to their diet. They kept weight and fat levels the same in both groups. Why? Because some people had felt that “confounding variables” such as diet and weight loss were the cause of any BP drop in previous studies, and not exercise itself.

The researchers could also be the first in medical history to include a group that did placebo exercises for comparison.

The result is powerful evidence that many men can literally “walk” their high blood pressure with an exercise investment of two hours a week.