Impact of physical activity on the prevalence of hypertension among the older adults in Beijing communities

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the impact of physical activity (PA) on the prevalence of hypertension among older adults in Beijing community. As economy growing rapidly in China, the occurrence of hypertension increases among older people in China as well. Epidemiological studies have shown that physical activity may significantly related to lower risk of hypertension. Taking PA maybe an instructive factor to reduce the risk of being hypertensive. We randomly selected Beijing community residents aged 65 and above (n=400), collected data comprising level of PA (low, moderate, high), blood pressure, and a host of potentially confounding variables indicated by the literature. Five logistic regression models adjusted for different modifiers were used to estimate the association between hypertension and PA. The prevalence of hypertension was 96.88%, 78.57% and 73.66% among subjects with low, moderate and high level of PA respectively. Lower diastolic BP was observed for elder people with higher level of PA (p<0.01). We observed a strong and statistically significant association between moderate (OR=0.09, 95%CI: 0.01 to 0.74) or high (OR=0.08, 95%CI: 0.01 to 0.57) level of PA and lower risk of hypertension (p < 0.05). PA is a protective factor for hypertension among older Beijing people, which suggests elderly people be encouraged to actively engage in PA, if body conditions permit.