Abstract Prevention of hypertension (HT), a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, and blood pressure (BP) control are important. For the prevention and management of high BP, increased physical activity (PA) is recommended as a lifestyle intervention. Although various PA assessment methods exist, their associations with clinical BP have been inconsistent. This study aimed to compare self-reported and accelerometer-measured PA in relation to home HT prevalence based on home BP, which has better reproducibility than office BP. We conducted this cross-sectional study of 5895 participants (mean age: 57.5 years, 70.4% women) in the Tohoku Medical Megabank Project Cohort Study. Total PA was assessed using two methods: self-reported activities (leisure, occupational/household) and accelerometer-measured values. Home HT was defined as morning home BP ≥ 135/85 mmHg or under HT treatment. Modified Poisson regression analysis showed no statistically significant association between self-reported total PA and the prevalence of home HT. In contrast, higher levels of accelerometer-measured total PA were associated with lower prevalence of home HT ( P for trend <0.05). Regarding other accelerometer-measured components, higher light PA and more steps were also significantly associated with lower prevalence of home HT. These associations were largely mediated by body mass index. In conclusion, accelerometer-measured PA, unlike self-reported PA, was associated with home HT, suggesting that PA assessed by accelerometers is useful for understanding the relationship between PA and HT, preventing HT, and managing high BP.
Hayashi et al. (Tue,) studied this question.