Systolic blood pressure begins a steady rise among men in their mid-40s, but that increase can be attenuated by physical fitness, to the extent that very fit men can stave off high systolic BP by a decade, compared with their unfit age-mates, according to a report published online Sept. 15 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Investigators performed a secondary analysis of data from the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study to assess the trajectory of blood pressure over time and determine whether physical fitness, as measured by maximal treadmill exercise testing, influenced that trajectory. The ACLS was a large cohort study of healthy adults who underwent serial preventive medical assessments between 1970 and 2006, said Dr. Junxiu Liu of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, and her associates.
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Physical fitness may help men control their blood pressure.
For their study, Dr. Liu and her colleagues focused on 13,953 men aged 20-90 years at baseline who participated in the ACLS, almost all of whom were white and 95% of whom were college-educated professionals. Overall, systolic blood pressure showed a linear increase with aging, while diastolic blood pressure did not. For each increase of 1 year in age, systolic BP increased by 0.30 mm Hg.
Systolic BP typically began to exceed 120 mm Hg at roughly age 46 years vin men with the lowest level of physical fitness but did not do so until age 54 years in those with the highest level of physical fitness. This suggests that engaging in physical activity reduces the duration of elevated systolic BP, which in turn may reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, other hypertension-related chronic diseases, medical costs, major morbidity, and mortality, the investigators said (J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 2014;64:1245-53 [doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2014.06.1184]).
In an analysis that accounted for numerous factors, age, body fat percent, waist circumference, resting heart rate, fasting glucose level, triglyceride level, cholesterol level, alcohol consumption status, and parental history of hypertension were all positively associated with systolic BP.