Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/c-JpAiLh5aw   Skiers turning in the best performances were the least likely to have blood pressure problems.  Swedish investigators compared the cardiovascular health of nearly 207,000 long-distance skiers with over a half million age and gender-matched individuals from the general population.   When the numbers were crunched, skiers were 41% less likely than non-skiers to have significantly elevated blood pressure.  The top 20% speedy skiers had a 59% lower risk of high blood pressure while the slowest 20% only enjoyed a 22% lower risk.  The benefits were the same for women and men.   Brisk aerobic leg exercise opens up your blood vessels and drops the pressures in your arteries.   Kasper Andersen et al. Long-Distance Skiing and Incidence of Hypertension: A Cohort Study of 206,889 Participants in a Long-Distance Cross-Country Skiing Event, Circulation (2020). DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.119.042208   #skiing #hypertension #aerobics