Adding small amounts of exercise into daily routine, such as climbing stairs or cycling to the shops, could help to reduce blood pressure, with just five additional minutes a day estimated to yield improvements, finds a new study from researchers at UCL and the University of Sydney. The study, supported by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and published in Circulation , analyzed health data from 14,761 volunteers who wore activity trackers to explore the relationship between daily movement and blood pressure. The researchers split daily activity into six behaviors Sleep Sedentary behavior (such as sitting) Slow walking (cadence less than 100 steps per minute) Fast walking (cadence above 100 steps per minute) Standing More vigorous exercise (such as running, cycling or stair climbing).
They then used this data to estimate the impact of replacing one type of activity with another. They found that replacing any less active behavior with five minutes of exercise could lower systolic blood pressure (SBP) by 0.68 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) by 0.
54mmHg 2 . At a population level, a 2mmHg reduction in SBP and a 1mmHg reduction in DPB is equivalent to an approximately 10% reduction in cardiovascular disease risk. The study estimated that these 'clinically meaningful' improvements could be achieved with as little as 20 additional minutes of exercise per day for SBP and 10 additional minutes of exercise per day for DBP 3 .
The findings emphasize tha.