CU Âé¶čÓ°Ôș researchers Daniel Craighead, Douglas Seals and their team are studying the effects of a specialized breathing exercise on older adultsâ blood pressure, brain health, cognition and fitness
Although the health benefits of exercise are well known, less than 40% of older and midlife Americans meet recommended aerobic activity guidelines. But what if you could improve your health without getting out of your chairâand it took only 10 minutes a day?
High-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST) may be the ticket, according to from the Integrative Physiology of Aging Laboratory, which is led by CU Distinguished Professor Douglas Seals, in the Âé¶čÓ°Ôș Department of Integrative Physiology.
Researchers found that participants who engaged in IMST, a type of breathing exercise designed to strengthen the diaphragm and accessory breathing muscles, appeared to show improvements across multiple health measures, including blood pressure, exercise tolerance, cognition and the functioning of .
How the study was done
IMST is a form of respiratory muscle training that lets you inhale against high resistance by breathing through a device that vaguely resembles a vacuum attachment. âThe breath is rapid and intense and feels a bit like sucking up a thick milkshake,â says Daniel Craighhead, an assistant research professor of integrative physiology and the studyâs lead investigator.
All subjects in the randomized, double-blind study were generally healthy men and postmenopausal women, at least 50 years old, classified as having elevated blood pressure (systolic blood pressure of at least 120 mmHg) and on average met minimum physical activity guidelines.
The experimental group performed high-resistance IMST, while the control group used a sham, low-resistance device. Both groups performed a specific protocol for five to 10 minutes per day, six days per week, for six weeks.
While the control group saw no significant health changes, the experimental group showed improvements in blood pressure, aerobic fitness, cognitive abilities and brain-blood-vessel health.
Potential health benefits
On average, subjectsâ systolic blood pressure decreased by nine points within six weeks, says Craighead. Given that high blood pressure is a for many health issues, including cardiac arrest, stroke, dementia and cancer, these preliminary findings justify more research, which Craighead is now spearheading.
Subjects also increased their capacity for aerobic exercise, a metric associated with positive health outcomes including longevity, quality of life and lower risks of stroke, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
At the beginning and the end of the study, subjects were asked to walk on a treadmill with a gradually increasing incline until they could no longer tolerate the activity. Although their VO2 max, or their maximum ability to consume oxygen, didnât change, subjects walked an average of 12% longer on the second trialâa significant improvement.
There were âreally strong improvementsâ in the quality of the blood vessels in subjectsâ brains as well. âStarting in midlife, the health of our brain blood vessels starts to decline. How rapidly and intensely that happens can impact our future risk for mild cognitive impairment and dementia, such as Alzheimerâs disease,â says Craighead.
And while itâs too soon to say definitively that IMST could delay or prevent the onset of dementia, âitâs at least a promising early finding,â he says.Ìę
Meanwhile, researchers observed significant improvements in subjectsâ executive functioning, or the ability to plan ahead, focus attention and switch between multiple tasks. And âexecutive function is one of the areas [of cognitive function] that declines most rapidly with dementia,â says Craighead.Ìę
So what does this mean?
If youâre tempted to trade your exercise routine for IMST, Craighead has advice: Donât. âWhile it seems to have similar effects to exercise when it comes to blood pressure and other health measures, unfortunately we didnât see changes in things like cholesterol levels, blood sugar or bone densityâall things we know exercise improves.â
That said, if youâre not currently exercising, IMST is a low-impact, time-efficient way to improve your health that has no known serious side effects. While some subjects initially reported neck strain and lightheadedness, those issues resolved and were not significant enough to cause anyone to quit the study, says Craighead. However, he and his research colleagues do recommend that everyone check with their physician before starting IMST because it might not be 100% safe for everyone.
This technique can be helpful for those with health conditions that make it impossible to meet the recommended physical activity guidelines, Craighead suggests.
Those exercising at higher levels may benefit from IMST, too. âI think the data is strong enough to say, if youâre a serious athlete, you might as well add it. And if you donât benefit from it, youâre likely not doing any harm,â says Craighead. âSay youâre a runner. Itâs not going to fatigue your legs or increase your risk of injury, and itâs time efficient.â
While the data suggest that IMST might improve health, cognition and athletic performance, Craighead isnât calling it a magic bullet. Itâs too soon to make any sweeping statements about the IMSTâs potential, according to Craighead. Still, he says, âThe initial results are really exciting.âÌę
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