Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training for Lowering Blood Pressure and Improving Endothelial Function in Postmenopausal Women: Comparison With "Standard of Care" Aerobic Exercise

Study Summary

High blood pressure (BP) is the major modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and related health conditions, particularly among postmenopausal (PM) women. In adults age ≥50 years this risk is primarily driven by above-normal systolic BP (SBP ≥120 mmHg), as diastolic BP plateaus, then decreases in older adulthood. Although SBP is lower in premenopausal women vs. age-matched men, SBP reaches, then surpasses men after age 60. As such, \>75% of PM women in the U.S. have above-normal SBP, which, in turn, is responsible for a 2-fold increase in risk of hypertension and corresponding increases in risk of CVD, chronic kidney disease and many other disorders. A key process linking high SBP to CVD and related conditions is vascular endothelial dysfunction, mediated by excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced oxidative stress and reductions in nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability. As the number of PM women is rapidly growing, further increases in SBP-related CV disorders are projected without effective intervention. * Aerobic exercise (AE) is a first-line, standard-of-care therapy for lowering BP. In PM women with baseline SBP ≥120 mmHg, AE reduces casual (resting) SBP by \~3 mmHg (back to baseline ≤4 weeks post-training), whereas 24-hour SBP is typically unchanged. However, only 25-30% of PM women meet guidelines for 150 min/week of moderate-intensity AE, citing the extensive time requirement, facility access and travel disruptions as major barriers. Another, far less recognized, limitation is that AE training consistently improves endothelial function in midlife/older men, but not in estrogen-deficient PM (PMe-) women, i.e., in \>95% of the 60+million PM women in the U.S. Thus, establishing new lifestyle therapies that induce and sustain reductions in SBP and increases in endothelial function in PMe- women with above-normal SBP is an important public health goal. * High-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST) is a time-efficient (5 minute

Conditions Studied

Interventions

• OTHER High-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training
• OTHER Aerobic exercise

Study Locations (1)