Six weeks stretching of lower limbs lowers blood pressure in hypertensive individuals

Purpose: Previous studies on healthy subjects suggest that 6-week passive stretching (PS) lowers blood pressure (BP) and arterial stiffness by enhancing vascular responsiveness in both stretched and non-stretched arteries. This study investigated whether a similar 6-week PS intervention applied to the lower limbs could elicit similar effects in patients with essential hypertension. Methods: 24 patients underwent assessments of central arterial stiffness (carotid–femoral pulse wave velocity, PWVcf), brachial (systemic) and femoral (local) vascular responsiveness (flow-mediated dilation, FMD; nitrate-mediated dilation, NMD; and single passive limb movement, sPLM), as well as BP and heart rate recordings. Measurements were obtained at baseline, after a 6-week control period, and following PS and a follow-up of the same duration. Results: No changes occurred following the 6-week control period. After PS, systolic, diastolic, and mean BP decreased by 4.9(SD4.6)% (P < 0.001, ES = –0.99), 6.9(SD4.9)% (P < 0.001, ES = –1.43), and 3.7(SD6.2)% (P = 0.005, ES = –0.63), respectively. Peak Q̇fem increased by 18.4(SD19.0)% (P < 0.001, ES = 0.92), and Δ Q̇fem by 27.1(SD21.7)% (P < 0.001, ES = 0.98). PWVcf, FMD, NMD, and heart rate remained unchanged. No correlations were retrieved between percentage differences in Q̇fem and BP variables. Furthermore, all improvements returned to baseline during follow-up. Conclusion: These findings indicate that 6-week PS effectively reduces blood pressure in hypertensive patients, possibly due to improved vascular responsiveness in the stretched arteries and the combined effect of other mechanisms that cannot be identified individually. However, these benefits dissipate once the intervention is discontinued.