Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training
Orange County, CA - April 10th, 2019 - Preliminary results from a clinical trial at the University of Colorado at Boulder, suggest that a 5-minute Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST) session can, improve vascular health, lower blood pressure, and boost fitness and sharpen memory.
"IMST is basically strength-training for the muscles you breathe in with. It's something you can do quickly in your home or office, without having to change your clothes, and so far it looks like it is very beneficial to lower blood pressure and possibly boost cognitive and physical performance," said Daniel Craighead, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Colorado Boulder Integrative Physiology department who lead the study.
IMST was initially created in the 1980s to wean severely sick individuals off ventilators gradually. Patients with lung diseases also completed a half an hour regimen at a low-resistance to increase their lung capacity. The training has the patient quickly breath in through a hand-held device giving resistance.
However, the University of Arizona researchers published results in 2016 of a trial that examined if thirty daily inhalations with a higher resistance may benefit individuals with obstructive sleep apnea, who have a tendency to have weaker muscles.
Not only did the subjects have more restful sleep at night, but they showed their systolic blood pressure decreased by 12 millimeters of mercury. That's about twice as much of a decline as aerobic exercise can yield and more than most medications give.
"That's when we got interested," said principal investigator Professor Doug Seals, director of CU Boulder's Integrative Physiology of Aging Laboratory.
Systolic blood pressure measures the pressure in your blood vessels when your heart beats. With age, the number naturally creeps up as arteries stiffen with age. This increase can cause damage to blood-starved tissues and a higher risk of heart attack, cognitive decline, and kidney damage.
Previous studies have shown the just a half an hour of aerobic exercise lowers blood pressure. Still, there is 65 percent of mid-aged adults that have high systolic blood pressure, but only 5 percent meet that minimum.
"Our goal is to develop time-efficient, evidence-based interventions that those busy mid-life adults will actually perform," said Seals.
Daniel Craighead presented the findings at the Experimental Biology 2019 which showed:
With about half the tests done, the researchers have found significant drops in blood pressure and improvements in large-artery function among those who performed IMST with no changes in those who used a sham breathing device that delivered low-resistance.
The group additionally improved their performance on specific cognitive and memory tests. They were also asked to exercise to complete exhaustion; they were able to keep their heart rate, and oxygen consumption lower during exercise and stay on the treadmill longer.
Researchers are remaining positive considering the high compliance rate ― fewer than 10 percent of study participants withdrew from the study, and no apparent side-effects
. "High blood pressure is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, which is the number one cause of death in America. Having another option in the toolbox to help prevent it would be a real victory," said Craighead.
Nonetheless, the researchers of the study emphasize that the results are in the early stage and warn individuals to ask their doctor first, before considering IMST.
