Called “inspiratory muscle strength training”, this exercise, performed 5 minutes a day, can reduce high blood pressure in a few weeks.
- Developed in the 80s, this exercise can be practiced in five minutes from home, in front of the television.
- Tested with people with systolic blood pressure higher than normal, it lowered blood pressure by an average of 9 points.
- It is more effective than active walking and some aerobic exercises, and has similar results to high blood pressure treatments.
A silent disease, arterial hypertension (HTA) would affect, according to a study by Public Health France, more than one in three French people, half of whom would be unaware of their condition and therefore would not take any treatment.
However, high blood pressure can have serious consequences: the hyperpressure of the blood on the walls of the arteries can stiffen them and cause them to age prematurely, which exposes them to a major risk of cardiovascular accidents, in particular heart attack. myocardium, strokes and kidney failure.
To reduce blood pressure, there are many treatments, which all act differently on hypertension. It is also recommended to take care of your diet and practice a sporting activity.
According to a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, a breathing exercise called “inspiratory muscle strength training” would also reduce blood pressure by practicing it for 5 minutes a day. Its results would even be, according to the authors of the study, as convincing, or even more so, than aerobic exercise or medication.
“We know there are many lifestyle strategies that can help people maintain cardiovascular health as they age. But the reality is that they take a lot of time and effort and can be expensive and difficult to implement. access for certain people”, says lead author Daniel Craighead. According to him, the advantage of this exercise is that it can be “made in five minutes, at home, while watching television”.
A marked decrease in systolic pressure
Developed in the 1980s to help patients with serious respiratory illnesses strengthen their diaphragm and other inspiratory muscles, the exercise involves inhaling vigorously through a hand-held device that provides resistance.
Initially, when prescribing this technique for respiratory disorders, doctors recommended a low resistance regimen of 30 minutes a day. Prof Craighead and his colleagues now want to know if a more time-efficient protocol – 30 inhalations per day at high resistance, six days a week – could also improve cardiovascular, cognitive and athletic performance.
To find out the answer, they recruited 36 healthy adults between the ages of 50 and 79 with higher than normal systolic blood pressure (120 mmHg or more). Half of them followed a high resistance exercise program for six weeks and the other half followed a placebo protocol in which the resistance was much lower.
The results showed that the group who did the exercise saw their systolic blood pressure drop by an average of nine points, a greater reduction than walking for 30 minutes a day five days a week. This decrease is also equivalent to the effects of certain hypotensive drug treatments. Moreover, even after stopping the exercise, the group maintained most of this improvement.
An exercise to suggest to postmenopausal women
Another advantage noted in this group: the 45% improvement in vascular endothelial function, i.e. the ability of the arteries to dilate under the effect of stimulation, as well as a significant increase in levels of nitric oxide, a molecule essential for dilating arteries and preventing plaque buildup. The markers of inflammation and oxidative stress were finally significantly lower after the practice of respiratory exercise, which continued to be practiced by almost 95% of the subjects.
Inspiratory muscle strength training could be used in particular for postmenopausal women, in whom aerobic exercise programs were not always effective in lowering blood pressure. “If aerobic exercise doesn’t improve this key measure of cardiovascular health in postmenopausal women, they need another lifestyle intervention that will.” And this exercise “could be the case”concludes Professor Craighead.
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