Half-hour walk ‘is good as drugs’ for blood pressure

WALKING for half an hour each morning is as effective as drugs at lowering blood pressure, research suggests.

Scientists found that a spell of moderate exercise brought down levels for the rest of the day.

High blood pressure affects one in three adults – more than 17million of the British population.

Of those, seven million are eligible for medication, but less than one million are thought to actually take the drugs.

Some 62,000 people die each year from strokes and heart attacks due to poor blood pressure control.

So undertaking regular exercise could be an alternative for those who are reluctant to take drugs.

Researchers tracked 35 women and 32 men – aged 55 to 80 and overweight – who took part in three different daily exercise plans, in random order, with at least six days between each one.

The best result for lowering blood pressure was when participants did 30 minutes of walking on a treadmill in the morning, followed by 6.5 hours of sitting – as long as they got up and walked around for a few minutes every half hour.

Blood pressure is expressed as two numbers: systolic – the upper number – and diastolic – the lower one. Those who did the exercise saw their systolic pressure drop by 5.1 points and their diastolic pressure drop by 1.1 points for the next eight hours. This would be enough to significantly cut the chance of heart attacks and strokes, researchers said.

They told medical journal Hypertension: ‘If these effects were to be sustained for a longer period, they would be comparable with the effects of monotherapy from many common antihypertensive drugs.

‘Pharmacological intervention to reduce resting systolic blood pressure by 10mmHg or diastolic blood pressure by 5mmHg approximates to a 22 per cent and 41 per cent reduction in coronary heart disease and stroke mortalities.’

Michael Wheeler, who led the study at the University of Western Australia in Perth, said women benefited more than men. This may be because all the women in the study were post-menopausal and therefore at higher risk of cardiovascular disease.

Chris Allen, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘This study supports a huge body of evidence that shows regular physical activity can help towards lowering your blood pressure and help reduce your risk of heart attacks and strokes.’