Research

Energy balance

An 18-month weight loss intervention combining energy restriction and moderate exercise significantly reduces blood pressure in overweight adults with high-normal diastolic blood pressure, with the magnitude of reduction directly proportional to the amount of weight lost.

If you are overweight with high-normal blood pressure, losing weight through a combination of eating less (without going below 1200 calories) and moderate exercise (walking 4-5 times a week) will lower your blood pressure. The more weight you lose, the more your blood pressure drops. This effect is seen in both men and women, though men may lose more weight initially due to higher baseline weight.

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During an 18-month follow-up period, this weight reduction program was shown to be an effective nonpharmacologic intervention for reducing blood pressure in overweight adults with high-normal blood pressure.
Victor J. Stevens · Archives of Internal Medicine · 1993

Why this rating

Randomized controlled trial with a large sample size (n=564) and long follow-up (18 months), though specific adherence metrics for exercise intensity vary.

Source

Weight Loss Intervention in Phase 1 of the Trials of Hypertension Prevention

Victor J. Stevens · Archives of Internal Medicine · 1993

DOI 10.1001/archinte.1993.00410070039006

rct · n=564Cited 226×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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