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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Lowering blood pressure: a systematic review of sustained effects of non-pharmacological interventions | | Author(s) | S Ebrahim, G D Smith |
| Journal title | Journal of Public Health Medicine, vol 20, no 4, December 1998 |
| Pages | pp 441-448 |
| Keywords | Blood pressure ; Exercise ; Diet ; Alcoholism ; Research Reviews. |
| Annotation | Risk factors for raised blood pressure includes obesity, physical inactivity, high dietary salt intake, stress, and high alcohol consumption. Much less is known about the effects on blood pressure of modification of these risk factors for the purposes of disease prevention. Using MEDLINE as the primary source, a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) was conducted to estimate the effects of various non-pharmacological interventions on blood pressure. Results revealed that the majority of RCTs were of short duration and did not provide guidance on the sustainability of effects and were excluded. Totals of eight RCTs of salt restriction, eight RCTs of weight reduction, eight of stress management, eight of exercise, and one of alcohol reduction of longer than six months duration were found. The majority of RCTs were of low methodological quality and bias often tended to increase the changes observed. Few of the trials controlled for the confounding effects of concurrent changes in other blood pressure risk factors. The authors concluded that there is a need for large-scale, long-duration trials of non-pharmacological interventions in both patients with high blood pressure and control groups. (AKM). |
| Accession Number | CPA-990126214 A |
| Classmark | BKL: CEA: CFD: ETA: 3A:6KC |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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