NIH grant to fund study of yoga's impact on controlling high blood pressure

Stacy Hunter, an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance at Texas State University, has been awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health in support of her research, "Yoga Postures and Slow Deep Breathing in Altering Mechanistic Outcomes in Hypertension."

The two-year, $400,000 grant will enable Hunter to investigate immune cell free radicals, which contribute to the pathology of hypertension, as a mechanism explaining yoga's blood pressure-lowering effects.

The study will provide for yoga classes to be held at Texas State's Jowers Center. The study will test the effects of 12 weeks of yoga sessions on blood pressure and vascular health. Hunter will recruit adults between the ages of 40 and 60 to participate and enrollment will begin in February.

Results from the study are expected to lend insight into how yoga changes the bodily environment to facilitate favorable effects in hypertension and lend insight into the role of yoga in lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease.