If high blood pressure runs in your family, a new study suggests you can turn your odds around by keeping physically fit.
A new study published Monday shows that physically fit people with a family history of high blood pressure were up to 34 percent less likely to develop high blood pressure than people who rarely exercised. The bonus is that it didn't take hours in the gym to see the benefit, but about 70 minutes of brisk walking every day.
"The results of this study send a very practical message, which is that even a very realistic, moderate amount of exercise -- which we define as brisk walking for 150 minutes per week -- can provide a huge health benefit, particularly to people predisposed to hypertension because of their family history," researcher Robin P. Shook, a doctoral graduate student in the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, said in a news release.
Previous research has found that having a parent with high blood pressure can account for about 35 to 65 percent of the variability of blood pressure levels, writes WebMD.
In the study, published in Hypertension, researchers followed more than 6,000 healthy adults, and about a third of them had a parent with high blood pressure.
