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Effects of the Timing of Intense Physical Activity on Hypertension Risk in a General Population: A UK-Biobank Study

  • Prevention of Hypertension: Public Health Challenges (Y Yano, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

It has recently been suggested that the timing of exercise is important in the subsequent development of hypertension. We used the UK Biobank database which prospectively collates data in over 500,000 people aged between 40 and 69 years to determine the relationship between the chronoactivity pattern of exercise and the risk of incident hypertension.

Recent Findings

We analyzed data from 70,617 participants with 7-day Axivity AX3 triaxial accelerometry information available. Comparisons were made by a K-means clustering analysis separating groups according to the daily timing of physical activity and intensity. Subgroup, sensitivity analyses, and Cox proportional hazard model were performed. The mean age of the cohort was 61.17 (± 7.89) years with 40.05% men, and there was a mean follow-up of 7.54 (± 1.65) years. Participants were separated into 4 clusters with 6341 developing hypertension. Cluster 1 (early morning physical activity) and Cluster 2 (early morning and later physical activity) had a significantly reduced risk of incident hypertension (adjusted HR 0.870 [95%CI 0.812–0.932) vs. 0.895 [95%CI 0.825–0.972], respectively) when compared with Cluster 3 (physical activity intensity spread evenly throughout the day). Cluster 1 and Cluster 2 cases with High Intensity physical activity had a lower risk of hypertension; however, Low Intensity physical activity in Cluster 1 still reduced the risk of incident hypertension. There was a lower risk of hypertension in Cluster 1 and Cluster 2 in both morning and evening sleep chronotypes.

Summary

The development of incident hypertension is significantly reduced in those who engage in some level of physical activity earlier in the day.

Lay Summary

Hypertension (high blood pressure) is a global problem with a high economic health burden that has been shown to be a major risk factor for diabetes, cardiovascular, and kidney disease. Our study has used a large maintained UK biological database to determine the impact of physical exercise on reducing the subsequent development of hypertension during follow-up from data provided by more than 70,000 participants. When we segregated patients into clusters of exercise timing, we found that the risk of developing hypertension over time was reduced for patients who performed exercise earlier in the morning than at other times of the day. This benefit was still evident even when the intensity of regular physical activity was low.

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Data Availability

Data was derived from the UK Biobank and was made available to registered researchers by application through the UK Biobank online Access Management System.

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Acknowledgements

The study was conducted using the UK-Biobank Resource available to registered researchers (Application No. 92014). We also acknowledge Yucen Wu for his assistance with relevant translations and Professor Andrew Zbar for his critical review of the manuscript.

Funding

Shaoyong Xu organized the funding for the study which was supported in part by several sources. These included the Young Talents Project of Hubei Provincial Health Commission China (Grant number WJ2021Q012), the Science and Technology Research Key Project of the Education Department of Hubei Province China (Grant number D20212602), and the Sanuo Diabetes Charity Foundation China and the Xiangyang Science and Technology Plan Project China (Grant number 2019ZD12).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Medicine, Wuhan University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, 430081, China

    Xiaying Li & Lingqi Wei

  2. Department of Endocrinology, Xiangyang Central Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Hubei University of Arts and Science, Xiangyang, 441021, China

    Xiaying Li, Lingqi Wei & Shaoyong Xu

  3. Center for Clinical Evidence-Based and Translational Medicine, Xiangyang Central Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Hubei University of Arts and Science, Xiangyang, 441021, China

    Jingjing Zeng, Bo Chen, Menglin Fan & Shaoyong Xu

  4. Department of Endocrinology, Daxing Hospital, Xi’an, 710000, China

    Jie Wang

  5. Department of Cardiology, Xiangyang Central Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Hubei University of Arts and Science, Xiangyang, 441021, China

    Yong Ren

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  1. Xiaying Li
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Contributions

XL and JZ have contributed equally to this work and share first authorship. SX, YR, and XL conceptualized the study. JZ and BC performed the data analysis with data interpretation conducted by SX, XL, JZ, BC, MF, and LW. XL, JZ, and SX drafted the initial paper structure with all of the authors critically revising the intellectual content of the paper. All authors read and approved of the final paper draft.

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Correspondence to Yong Ren or Shaoyong Xu.

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Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

The present study was approved by the local Hospital Ethics Committee Wuhan University of Science and Technology PRC under a Grant application 90214 permitting the analysis of the UK Biobank database. The database was approved by the North West Multicentre Research Ethics Committee (MREC) which under arrangement has made data available to qualified and registered researchers. Patients providing data have given informed consent for use of their data provided under the Patient Information Advisory Group for England and Wales. The study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments (or comparable ethical standards).

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Xiaying Li and Jingjing Zeng contributed equally to this work and share first authorship

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Li, X., Zeng, J., Chen, B. et al. Effects of the Timing of Intense Physical Activity on Hypertension Risk in a General Population: A UK-Biobank Study. Curr Hypertens Rep 26, 81–90 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11906-023-01278-w

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