Relaxation training may improve control of hard-to-treat systolic hypertension

“The other nonpharmacological interventions that we know can reduce systolic blood pressure – reducing dietary sodium, weight loss, smoking cessation and increasing physical activity – can be very difficult for patients to achieve,” says Jeffrey Dusek, PhD, the study’s lead author. “Our control group received an intensive amount of good-health information and reported making fairly dramatic lifestyle changes, but only the relaxation response group was able to significantly reduce their use of antihypertensive medications.” Formerly with the Benson-Henry Institute, Dusek is now with the Institute for Health and Healing at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis.

Zusman adds, “We are now going to look at the very large patient population currently termed pre-hypertensives – those whose blood pressure is elevated but does not yet meet the criteria for drug therapy. If we can train those patients to elicit the relaxation response, we may be able to delay or even avoid the onset of hypertension, improving their cardiovascular health, reducing dependence on medications and potentially reducing overall health care costs.” Zusman is an associate professor of Medicine, and Benson is the Mind/Body Medical Institute Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Additional co-authors of the report are Patricia Hibberd, MD, PhD, Bei-Hung Chang, ScD, Kathryn Dusek, Jennifer Johnston, MD, and Ann Wohlhueter of the Benson-Henry Institute, and Beverly Buczynski, RN, MGH Cardiology. The study was supported by grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. The Benson-Henry Institute has benefited from the interest and support of John Henry, principal owner of the Boston Red Sox.

Massachusetts General Hospital (www.massgeneral.org), established in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $500 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine.