5 minutes of extra activity a day brings marked benefits for heart health

Finding time for exercise each day is a challenge for many people, but a new study of nearly 15,000 men and women found that adding just five minutes of activity to get your heart rate up is enough to lower your blood pressure.

An international team of researchers led by the University of Sydney (USyd) and University College London (UCL) found that certain movements such as walking the stairs, cycling or jogging – even for just five minutes – each day would could help reduce both systolic problems. blood pressure (SBP) by about 0.68 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) by about 0.54 mm Hg.

SBP, the top number on a BP reading, refers to the pressure experienced by the arteries while the heart is beating, while DBP, the bottom number, refers to the amount of pressure in the arteries between beats.

“High blood pressure is one of the biggest health problems globally, but unlike some major causes of cardiovascular mortality, there may be relatively affordable ways to address the problem besides drugs,” said lead study author Emmanuel Stamatakis, USyd professor and director of the ProPASS Consortium (Prospective Physical Activity, Sitting and Sleep) “The finding that doing just five extra minutes of exercise per day could be associated with measurably lower blood pressure values ​​underscores how powerful short periods of of higher-intensity exercise to manage blood pressure.”

High blood pressure it affects approximately 1.28 billion adults across the globe and is a key factor in cerebrovascular accident, heart attack and heart failure. And while diet and lifestyle interventions are important in managing high blood pressure, as well as medications, exercise can be difficult for many reasons—including time constraints and fitness levels.

In the study, 14,761 people in five countries were assigned to wear a thigh accelerometer device to measure their activity and blood pressure throughout the day and night. Daytime activities were grouped into six categories – sleep, sedentary behavior (sitting), slow walking, brisk walking, standing, and more vigorous exercise (such as running, cycling, stair climbing).

From the data gathered, the team analyzed how changing one of these six behaviors for another could have a measurable impact on blood pressure. While they found that, unsurprisingly, replacing sedentary behavior with more vigorous exercise had the greatest benefits, it was the time spent doing so that provided the surprises.

While the clinically significant change in blood pressure came from 20-27 minutes of extra exercise—about 2 mm Hg for SBP and 1 mm Hg for DBP—just five minutes a day was enough to change the dial.

“Our findings suggest that for most people, exercise is essential reducing blood pressurerather than less strenuous forms of movement such as walking,” said first author Dr Jo Blodgett from UCL’s Division of Surgery and Interventional Sciences. “The good news is that regardless of your physical ability, it doesn’t take long to have a positive effect on blood pressure What’s unique about our exercise variable is that it includes all exercise-type activities, from running for a bus or a short bike errand, many of which can be integrated into your daily . routines.

“For those who do not exercise much, walking still had some positive benefits for blood pressure,” she added. But if you want to change your blood pressure, putting more stress on your cardiovascular system through exercise will have the biggest effect.”

As these findings suggest, sedentary behavior was negatively associated with SAH and DBP, yet walking and standing did not make things worse—or ultimately much better. However, if you were to spend five minutes walking up a hill, that would be enough to get your heart rate up and potentially reap the benefits of more “vigorous” exercise.

Across the six categories the researchers based their modeling on, sleep was also found to have a positive impact on blood pressure, suggesting that a little extra shut-eye is more valuable to your heart health than sitting on the sofa in front of the television. .

“However, a substantial amount of time reallocated from sedentary behavior to sleep (eg, two hours and 50 minutes for SBP, one hour and 46 minutes for DBP) was required to produce clinically meaningful reductions in BP ,” noted the researchers in the study. . “Our findings reinforce that, in free-living environments, more time spent in exercise-like activities has the strongest association with BP, and even small changes in daily movement patterns can generate clinically meaningful improvements.”

Of course, check with your doctor before changing your daily routine or to find some alternatives to get your heart rate up if activities like biking, hiking, or stair climbing aren’t an option.

The study was published in the journal Circulation.

Source: University of Sydney