Want to Lower Your Blood Pressure? Step It Up!
The smart watches seen on the wrists of roughly 1 in 5 Americans could be more than just a fun gimmick but a potentially useful research tool to track habitual physical activity levels. People who took more steps daily, as tracked by their watch, had lower blood pressure on average than those taking fewer steps in a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together with World Congress of Cardiology (ACC.20/WCC).
The research is part of the Framingham Heart Study, a project focusing on factors affecting heart disease that has been ongoing for more than 70 years. Researchers analyzed data from 638 study participants who were asked to wear an Apple Watch daily and record their blood pressure at home weekly. Over the course of the study, participants’ average systolic blood pressure was 122 mm Hg and average diastolic blood pressure was 76 mm Hg, levels that are considered normal to slightly elevated according to the 2017 ACC/AHA High Blood Pressure in Adults guideline.
The study is one of the first to use commercially available wearable devices to track habitual physical activity in a large group of people in the context of daily life outside of a health care setting or research center.
Excerpted from Science Daily
