Search

Background Population‐wide reduction in mean blood pressure is proposed as a key strategy for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. We evaluated the effectiveness of a task‐sharing strategy involving frontline health workers in the primary prevention of elevated blood pressure. Methods and Results We conducted DISHA (Diet and lifestyle Interventions for Hypertension Risk reduction through Anganwadi Workers and Accredited Social Health Activists) study, a cluster randomized controlled trial involving 12 villages each from 4 states in India. Frontline health workers delivered a custom‐made and structured lifestyle modification intervention in the selected villages. A baseline survey was conducted in 23 and 24 clusters in the control (n=6663) and intervention (n=7150) groups, respectively. The baseline characteristics were similar between control and intervention clusters. In total 5616 participants from 23 clusters in the control area and 5699 participants from 24 clusters in the intervention area participated in a repeat cross‐sectional survey conducted immediately after the intervention phase of 18‐months. The mean (SD) systolic blood pressure increased from 125.7 (18.1) mm Hg to 126.1 (16.8) mm Hg in the control clusters, and it increased from 124.4 (17.8) mm Hg to 126.7 (17.5) mm Hg in the intervention clusters. The population average adjusted mean difference in difference in systolic blood pressure was 1.75 mm Hg (95% CI, −0.21 to 3.70). Conclusions Task‐sharing interventions involving minimally trained nonphysician health workers are not effective in reducing population average blood pressure in India. Expanding the scope of task sharing and intensive training of health workers such as nurses, nutritionists, or health counselors in management of cardiovascular risk at the population level may be more effective in primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Registration URL: https://www.ctri.nic.in ; Unique identifier: CTRI/2013/10/004049.

There are short-term and long-term variations seen in blood pressure. An abnormal pattern in cyclic variations of blood pressure (diurnal or seasonal) correlates well with an increased cardiovascular risk for hypertension, regardless of the resting blood pressure level. Increased blood pressure reactivity to smoking is also associated with a higher cardiovascular risk, and may be a significant determinant of cyclic blood pressure variations. The purpose of the study was to compare systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) between smokers and non smokers and elicit the cardiovascular risk. To achieve the purpose twenty (20) male athletes were selected from Dept. of physical education and sports science, Annamalai University, among these selected subjects ten (10) were smokers and ten (10) were non smokers. The parameters analyzed were 24-hour daytime and nighttime systolic and diastolic blood pressure using sphygmomanometer. The data was collected at six different times of the day 02:00, 06:00, 10:00, 14:00, 18:00 and 22:00 hours respectively. The data was collected from smokers and non smokers on SBP and DBP and 2 × 6 ANOVA with last factor repeated was computed. SBP and DBP showed significant variations between smokers and non smokers. SBP and DBP showed significant variations between smokers and non smokers at different times of the day. Not only the absolute value of blood pressure, but also the patterns of its excessive variation are closely related to the occurrence of cardiovascular events, so these patterns are clinically important. It may be difficult to explain the exact mechanisms of various abnormal short-term and long-term blood pressure variations at present. Smoking has been suggested as the causes of abnormal variations in blood pressure.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the twelve weeks of aerobic dance impact on cardiovascular parameters of male obese adults. To achieve sixty (60) obese men were selected as samples for the experimental study. These subjects age ranged between 25 and 40 years. For this, a purposive sampling technique was used. Those who are diagnosed as obese by the consultant physician of the Pondicherry institute of medical sciences if the body mass index ( BMI) was more than normal limits > 27.8. Further, the sample subjects were randomly assigned into almost two equated groups, namely Aerobic dance group (ADG) (n= 30) and Control group (CG) (n = 30). All these subjects were residing within radius of one to three kilometers range in grater Puducherry. Blood pressure and heart rate was selected as criterion variable and measured with Omron Blood pressure and heart rate monitor. The aerobic dance training was administered 60 minutes per day for 6 days in a week for total period of 12 weeks. The data was collected before and after 12 weeks of training and analysed using ANCOVA. The result of the study showed that systolic and diastolic blood pressure between the groups was significant, F (1,57) = 7.69 and 4.488, indicating that after adjusting pre-test scores, there was a significant difference between the two groups on posttest scores on systolic and diastolic blood pressure. In contrast, heart rate found to be not significant, F (1,57) = 3.33. The findings of the study show that systolic and diastolic blood pressure tends to decrease as a result of aerobic dance training. It is concluded that aerobic dance is the proper physical activity form for 30-40 years old men obese subjects for developing cardiovascular system capacity. The stress on the cardiovascular system is minimised due to aerobic dance which was fun and recreative. This might improve the life status of the obese subjects.