Health

Walking more can help lower blood pressure in seniors, study says

By Mallika Marshall, MD

September 27, 2023 / 5:29 PM EDT / CBS Boston

BOSTON - Eighty percent of older adults in the U.S. have high blood pressure but a new study finds that taking more steps a day could be an easy and cost-free way to control the condition.

Researchers at Iowa State University and the University of Connecticut took 21 sedentary seniors with hypertension and found that taking an additional 3,000 steps a day improved both their systolic (upper number) and diastolic (lower number) blood pressure, whether the participants were taking blood pressure medications or not.

The scientists would now like to perform larger trials to confirm these findings.

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Mallika Marshall, MD

Mallika Marshall, MD is an Emmy-award-winning journalist and physician who has served as the HealthWatch Reporter for CBS Boston/WBZ-TV for over 20 years. A practicing physician Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Dr. Marshall serves on staff at Harvard Medical School and practices at Massachusetts General Hospital at the MGH Chelsea Urgent Care and the MGH Revere Health Center, where she is currently working on the frontlines caring for patients with COVID-19. She is also a host and contributing editor for Harvard Health Publications (HHP), the publishing division of Harvard Medical School.

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