Researchers from the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) have announced the results of a study indicating the advantages of resistance training in relationship to positive cardiovascular effects.
The study’s findings demonstrates that after just 6 weeks of resistance training and exercise, 2 vital bio-markers associated with negative outcomes relating to vascular tissue damage had disappeared for African American men.
The study’s results did not show the same effects for Caucasian men.
These bio-markers, key indicators for inflammation, immune response and the shaping of vascular tissue generally rise in conjunction with tissue damage, infection and stress.
The bio-markers discovered to decrease after the resistance training are known as C-reactive proteins.
“This suggests that resistance exercise training is more beneficial in young African American men then in [white] men of the same age,” said Bo Fernhall, dean of the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).
“Higher blood pressures in African American children have been shown asyoung as 8 to 10 years of age,” said Dr. Fernhall. “so there’s obviously something going on that predisposes the African American population to end stage disease, hypertension and stroke and the more debilitating diseases later on in life.”
Cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke and kidney disease is more widespread among blacks than whites in the United States.
Levels of these C-reactive proteins bio-markers, one involving vascular re-modeling and the other that signals oxidative stress, dropped significantly among African American men that lifted weights. Study co-author Marc Cook, a UIC doctoral student pointed out that this study builds on a previous study that shows that aerobic exercise also helps to lower levels of the C-reactive protein bio-markers for oxidative stress.
“If you don’t like cardiovascular exercise, if you don’t like running on a treadmill, if you can’t play basketball or you’re not good at it, you can lift weights and improve your health, especially when it comes to high blood pressure,” Cook said. “If you want to lift weights and you do it on a regular basis, you could improve your function.
Lead study author, Dr. Bo Fernhall, is a professor in the department of kinesiology and community health at UIC’s Urbana-Champaign campus.
The study findings were published online in the Journal of Human Hypertension.
Article by Jim Donahue
Reflexology alleviate muscle tension and stress
