Every year about fifty million Americans suffer from hypertension (Stevens & Glass, 2001). High blood pressure is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and stroke. High blood pressure or hypertension usually does not cause any symptoms until there is serious physical damage done to the body. This is why it is often referred to as the “silent killer”. It is important to diagnose high blood pressure before it causes the body harm. Heart pumping blood through the arteries puts pressure on the artery walls. Hypertension occurs when blood pressure stays elevated overtime. This increased pressure on the heart puts a strain on the circulatory system and can lead to serious problems. Some of these problems include stroke, heart disease, and kidney failure.

According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in the United States. More than 2,600 people die of heart disease every day, which means one cardiovascular death every 33 seconds (Steffen, Sherwood, Gullette, Georgiades, Hinderliter & Blumenthal, 2001). High blood pressure can be caused by a number of factors such as cigarette smoking, diabetes,

Drug therapy is often used in combination with exercise and diet to reduce hypertension. For those people with hypertension that want to avoid drug therapy, this next study is applicable. The study took 52 men with mild hypertension and exercised them three times a week for ten weeks. Some of the men were assigned a placebo drug

Roltsch, M. H., Mendez, T., Wilund, K., and Hagberg, J.M. (2001). Acute resistive exercise does not affect ambulatory blood pressure in young men and women. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 33, 881-886.

Fagand, R. (1999). Physical activity in the prevention and treatment of hypertension in the obese. Medical and Science in Sports and Exercise, 30, 354-366.

Black, H.R. (1993). Treatment of mild hypertension. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 270, 757-761.

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