Strong Men Handle High Blood Pressure Better

The mortality risk in people with high blood pressure has declined over the last 20 years, according to a recent analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reported online in the journal Circulation.  But the gap between those with and without hypertension has remained about the same. 

Obviously there have been efforts by people diagnosed with hypertension to treat their problem, with some success.  Apart from a healthier lifestyle – diet, weight control, medications – there’s another factor that’s been uncovered by Spanish researchers.   Their study showed that men with the greatest reduction in mortality were those with the most muscular strength.  It’s reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.     

Over 1,500 hypertensive men aged 40 or above were enrolled in the study from 1980 to 2003.  They had their muscular strength (a bench press and a leg press) and aerobic fitness (treadmill) measured at baseline, and were followed for an average of 18 years.  During this time 183 (12.2%) of them died.   

All the men were classified into 3 groups according to their muscle strength.  The age-adjusted death rates per 10,000 person-years were 81.8, 65.5, and 52.0 for the lower, medium, and higher strength groups, respectively.   

Adjustments were then made for most known cardiovascular risk factors: age, physical activity, smoking, alcohol use, body mass index, blood pressure, total cholesterol, diabetes, abnormal EKG, and family history of cardiovascular disease.  The individual risks of dying during follow-up were shown to decrease with increasing muscular strength.  Could it possibly be that muscles in the artery walls were also stronger? 

There are obvious weaknesses with this study.  For instance, the numbers were rather small, while muscular and aerobic strength were only measured at baseline.  However, the findings are statistically significant (i.e. they could hardly have occurred by chance alone), and they should provide us all with the necessary motivation to take up, or keep up, our resistance-training activities, whether we’re hypertensive or not.