Blood Pressure Essay -- Health, Diseases, Walking

Distance Other studies have attempted to measure the effect of distance on blood pressure response in order to find if there is any correlation between distance and a significant blood pressure reduction. One of these studies (see Moreau et al, 2001) involved 24 sedentary post-menopausal American women (15 in the intervention group ) with high blood pressure. The results found that, after a 2-year walking programme, that there was a statistically significant drop of 13 mmHg in the systolic blood pressure of those participants who were taking anti-hypertensive drugs and of 11 mmHg in those not receiving medication, whereas there was no difference found in their diastolic blood pressure and in the blood pressure of the control group. The participants in the intervention group were instructed to walk 3 kms per day in addition to their normal daily physical activity. After the first year the reduction in blood pressure was significant: 6 mm Hg in the systolic blood pressure of the participants wh o were taking anti-hypertensive medication and 7mmHg in the non-medication group. In this study , the magnitude of the reduction of systolic blood pressure as a result of a walking programme is similar to that which has been found in earlier studies in response to traditional exercise (see Seals et al,1997, and Hagberg et al, 2000). Frequency Several studies have examined the impact of the frequency of walking per week on blood pressure in order to determine what frequency is most effective in terms of blood pressure reduction response. A study by Gettman et al, conducted in 1976, which compared the effect of fast walking between one, three and five days per week on blood pressure response, found that the difference in frequency was no... ...ffect on systolic blood pressure only. Lee et al (2010) found that moderate to high intensity waking was more likely to decrease blood pressure than low intensity walking. This result supports the findings of the study conducted by Quinn in the year 2000. Nemoto et al (2007) compared the effect of continuous walking at moderate intensity (50% of peak aerobic capacity) and interval walking at high intensity (70% of peak aerobic capacity) on reducing blood pressure. They found that blood pressure reduction was greater in the group who walked at high intensity: 9 mmHg for systolic blood pressure and 5 mmHg for diastolic. The results of a study conducted in India by Gosh (2006) to measure the effect of walking intensity (2 Km/30min) for 20 weeks, showed that there was a significant reduction in systolic/diastolic blood pressure by approximately 10 mmHg/4 mmHg.