Health conscious people and those with certain diseases who need to be more careful with their food choices and physical activities can greatly benefit from easy exercises.
According to an article posted on the US News, researchers said that a few minutes of easy exercise every day could help lower blood pressure for overweight and obese people who were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
Bronwyn Kingwell the co-author and head of metabolic and vascular physiology at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes in Melbourne said that in the results it showed that a person doesn't need to do so much. She noted that they saw some blood pressure reductions during trial periods when people did the equivalent of walking to get water or do some simple body-weight movements at home.
During the study, the team researchers monitored the blood pressure of 24 overweight and obese adults while they were sitting for 8 hours. The average age of these 24 participants was 62 years old and all of them had type 2 diabetes. The participants took short breaks from sitting and they would either walk slowly for three minutes or did a simple resistance exercise for three minutes as well. They would do this every half an hour and their blood pressure was monitored.
Resistance exercise included activities like half-squats, calf raises, gluteal muscle squeeze and knee raises. Compared to uninterrupted sitting, light walking led to an average 10-point drop in systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading). Simple resistance exercise led to an average 12-point decrease in systolic blood pressure, the study reported.
The study was to be presented Monday at the American Heart Association's annual meeting in Orlando. Fla. Until published in a peer-reviewed journal, findings presented at meetings are usually considered preliminary.
