About one-third of adults globally have high blood pressure, which increases the risk of having a heart attack or stroke (中风). Physical activity is known to lower blood pressure. However, many people have trouble keeping to exercise plans.
Yoga tends to be more sustainable (可持续的) than other forms of exercise because it is gentle, can be done with others and helps to relax the mind. Several experiments have found that yoga lowers blood pressure. However, these experiments have typically involved several sessions a week, which may not be achievable for many people.
To find out if yoga helps to reduce blood pressure in the real world, some researchers conducted a new study and analysed the electronic health records of 1,355 people aged 18 to 79 who practised yoga at least once a week. They compared each of these people with at least three other individuals. They had similar characteristics in terms of things like age, gender, and body mass index (BMI), but had no mention of practising yoga in their records. On average, the people who practised yoga had systolic blood pressure (收缩压) that was 2.8 mmHg lower and diastolic blood pressure (舒张压) that was 1.5 mmHg lower than those who didn’t.
This blood pressure reduction probably wouldn’t make a huge difference to most people in the study, since they tended to be young and healthy. They already had normal blood pressure. But at a population level, if average blood pressure declined by this much, it would prevent a significant number of heart attacks and strokes. For example, a 2018 study found that a population-wide average systolic blood pressure reduction of 2 mmHg among middle-aged adults in the US would prevent more than 12,000 heart attacks and 7,000 strokes each year.
Based on the new study, we can’t say for sure that yoga lowers blood pressure, because there may be other explanations for the findings. People who do yoga may have lower blood pressure because they tend to have better diets, not because of the yoga itself. And yoga shouldn’t be seen as the replacement for blood pressure lowering medicines. Nevertheless, yoga is likely to assist in lowering blood pressure if it encourages sedentary (久坐的) people to exercise. “The greatest benefit is getting the exercise-shy to do something rather than increasing exercise in someone who does it regularly,” an expert says.
12. Which advantage does yoga have over other kinds of exercise?
A.It is easier for beginners to learn. | B.It is more effective in keeping fit. |
C.People are more likely to stick to it. | D.People can find partners more easily. |
13. Which of the following can be inferred from the new study?
A.The study took the relevant factors in reality into consideration. |
B.All these participants were of the same age and gender. |
C.The study analysed different kinds of exercise. |
D.The researchers studied the participants’ daily routine. |
14. What does the author want to show by the example in paragraph 4?
A.The results are far from satisfactory. |
B.Lowering blood pressure is quite easy. |
C.Blood pressure reduction is beneficial. |
D.Doing yoga once a week is meaningful. |
15. What can we learn from the last paragraph?
A.Other reasons have been found to explain the blood pressure reduction for certain. |
B.Encouraging inactive people to do yoga possibly contributes to lowering blood pressure. |
C.Having better diets is more important than practising yoga regularly for sedentary people. |
D.The benefits of practising yoga are equal to taking blood pressure lowering medicines. |