Gaby
Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) enrolled more than 5,000 adults living in four U.S. cities in a study that looked at whether physical activity can prevent high blood pressure.
Hypertension, or high blood pressure, affects billions worldwide. It raises the risk of heart attacks and strokes and is also linked to dementia later in life. The World Health Organization estimates that one in four men and one in five women globally have hypertension, yet most people with the condition don’t know they have it — which is why it’s often called a “silent killer.”
What the Researchers Discovered
Epidemiologist Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, the study’s lead author, says teenagers and young adults tend to be very active, but activity drops as people get older. Previous research shows exercise lowers blood pressure, she said, but until now it wasn’t clear how much activity across the lifespan is needed to prevent hypertension.
“Maintaining a higher level of physical activity in young age—beyond previous recommendations—may be particularly important for preventing hypertension,” Bibbins-Domingo emphasized.
The team followed 5,100 adults for three decades. They used surveys to track exercise habits and harmful behaviors like smoking and drinking, and they took regular blood pressure measurements. For a more detailed analysis, volunteers were grouped by gender and race, as reported by Science Alert.
They found that between ages 18 and 40, physical activity declined among both men and women across racial groups. In the following decades, rates of hypertension rose while activity levels continued to fall.
The researchers say this suggests young adulthood is a crucial window to prevent hypertension, especially by boosting physical activity.
“About half of our participants were insufficiently active in their youth, which significantly contributed to later hypertension,” said lead author Jason Nagata. “This highlights the need to raise the minimum standard for physical activity.”
The team also found that people who did about five hours of moderate exercise a week in early adulthood — double the current minimum official recommendation — had a much lower risk of developing hypertension, especially if they continued to exercise into their 60s.
The researchers say doubling the current minimum physical activity recommendations for adults could help prevent hypertension. While increasing activity in adulthood is challenging when life fills up with responsibilities, the findings underscore the importance of making exercise a priority. The study was published in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
