Scientists explore heat therapy to lower blood pressure

The saying goes that you should stay out of the kitchen if you can’t take the heat, but new research suggests otherwise for the sake of your blood pressure.

- Miriam Fauzia, Tribune News Service

In a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers at UNT Health Fort Worth found at-home heat therapy may hold the key to lowering blood pressure. A group of older adults wore heated pants for an hour a day, four days a week. After eight weeks, their blood flow improved and their systolic blood pressure, which measures blood flow when the heart beats, dropped by around 5 points. The study comes at a time when nearly 120 million American adults have high blood pressure, but only one in four of those adults has it under control. In Texas, about 328 of adults report being told by a health care professional they have high blood pressure. And in 2023, high blood pressure was a primary or contributing cause in over 664,000 deaths in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.