By Wendy Haaf
If you have prediabetes and take medication to lower your blood pressure, you can reap more health rewards by adding regular exercise to your routine. That finding comes from a small study involving overweight and obese adults with prediabetes who were getting fewer than 120 minutes of physical activity per week and who’d been taking antihypertensive meds. Participants were randomly split into two groups—one was given their usual medication for three days, while the other got a placebo—and then had their blood pressure recorded. Subjects then completed a supervised four-month, thrice-weekly indoor cycling program, then were again randomly assigned to the medication or placebo groups for a three-day period.
Comparing blood-pressure readings between groups and across the two three-day periods, the researchers found that medication reduced blood pressure, as expected. However, this reduction was more pronounced after four months of workouts. Interestingly, they also found that, without medication, exercise’s positive impact on blood pressure was not as strong. They surmise that the two treatments have an additive effect on controlling blood pressure.
Source: American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting and World Congress
