Abstract
Background: Previous studies on physical activity were generally focused on one or two types of activity, with few studies looking at mortality, and even fewer studies looking at patients with hypertension and diabetes. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between physical activity and blood pressure and mortality in hypertensive patients with diabetes.
Methods: Hypertensive patients combined with diabetes were collected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2018. These patients were categorized into the physical-active group, and the physical-inactive group. Multivariate Cox regression analysis was performed using T-test, Chi-square test, hazard ratio, and corresponding 95% confidence interval to investigate the effect of physical activity on mortality of hypertensive patients with diabetes.
Results: Physical activity had a significant negative correlation with systolic blood pressure(p=0.01) and among those taking antihypertensive drugs (p=0.0035). After adjusted for age, gender and race, there was still a significant negative association between physical activity and systolic blood pressure (p=0.03). In contrast, physical activity showed a positive correlation with diastolic blood pressure (p=0.002) and among taking antihypertensive drugs participants (p=0.02). In the unadjusted model, the physical-inactive group displayed notably higher risks of all-cause mortality and hypertensive mortality (p＜0.0001). Even after adjusted for age, gender, and race, the physical-inactive group demonstrate a significant increase in the risk of all-cause mortality and hypertensive mortality (p < 0.0001).
Conclusions: Physical activity can lower systolic blood pressure and reduce the mortality in hypertensive patients with diabetes.