High Level of Physical Activity Reduces the Risk of Renal Progression in Hypertensive Patients

Abstract

Physical activity has long been associated with chronic diseases. However, the association between physical activity and renal progression in hypertensive patients remains unclear. This study investigated the relationship between the level of physical activity and renal function in hypertensive patients. We analyzed 3543 patients with hypertension. Data on patients’ demographic characteristics, comorbidities, physical activity, and lifestyle characteristics were collected via questionnaires. An estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) that was reduced by more than 25% from the baseline eGFR was defined as renal progression. This study divided physical activity into three levels (low, moderate, and high) based on their metabolic equivalent of tasks (METs) levels. The mean age was 63.32 ± 12.29 years. After we adjusted for covariates, renal progression was significantly higher among patients with low levels of physical activity (odds ratio (OR), 1.39; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.01–1.90)) and moderate levels of physical activity (OR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.04–1.86) than among patients with high levels of physical activity. We found a significant association between physical activity and renal progression in hypertensive patients, especially in elderly patients and men. Therefore, to reduce the risk of renal progression, we recommend that clinicians should encourage patients to improve their physical activity.

Associations of Walking Activity With Hypertensive Mediated Organ Damage in Community-Dwelling Elderly Chinese: The Northern Shanghai Study

“…Furthermore, we calculated the METs and categorized into three levels of physical activity based on IPAQ ( 20 ), including low ( n = 1,379), moderate ( n = 1,411), and vigorous ( n = 40). To investigate the relationship between different levels of physical activity and vascular HMOD, we conducted multivariate logistic regressions after adjustment for confounders, and the results indicated that only the resulting OR for peripheral artery disease was significantly negatively associated with a moderate-to-vigorous level of physical activity (OR: 0.74, 95% CI: 0.60–0.93, p = 0.009) relative to a low level of physical activity ( Table 4 ).…”

“…Weekly walking activity was evaluated by standard questionnaires based on the International Physical Activity Questionnaires-short form (IPAQ, including how many days spent on walking at least 10 min at a time and walking duration time) ( http://www.ipaq.ki.se ), which has been validated and widely used in many clinical trials ( 18 – 20 ). In subgroup analysis, walking duration was classified into four groups (non-walking activity; 10–29 min/day; 30–59 min/day; ≥1 h/day), and walking frequency were categorized into <3 days/week and ≥3 days/week, with reference to the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (KNHANES) ( 18 ).…”

“…Furthermore, the metabolic equivalent of tasks (METs) was calculated as follows: walking activity METs = 3.3 × walking minutes × walking days ( 20 ). Then, physical activity was divided into three levels (low, moderate, vigorous intensity) as previously reported: vigorous, seven or more days of walking achieving at least 3,000 MET-minutes/week; moderate, five or more days of walking achieving at least 600 MET-minutes/week; low, not meeting the criteria of moderate or vigorous intensity ( 20 , 21 ).…”

Lifestyle changes and kidney function: A 10‐year follow‐up study in patients with manifest cardiovascular disease

“…Change in physical activity in our study was not associated with kidney function decline in patients with manifest CVD. Previous studies have found higher physical activity to be associated with decreased risk of rapid eGFR decline 11 . Physical inactivity indirectly influences the risk of CKD through the development of obesity, diabetes and hypertension, which were all adjusted for in our main analyses.…”

“…Fortunately, progressive loss of kidney function can be diminished by a number of interventions, including prescription of a RAS‐inhibitor, 6 SGLT2‐inhibitor, 7 adequate control of known risk factors such as diabetes mellitus and hypertension, and lifestyle interventions, including smoking cessation, 8 weight loss, 9 lower alcohol consumption 10 and physical exercise 11 . Reduced intake of sodium has also been shown to lower kidney function decline 12 .…”