{"id":6088,"date":"2020-07-02T11:38:36","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T11:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=6088"},"modified":"2020-07-01T11:42:19","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T11:42:19","slug":"stretching-your-legs-may-help-prevent-diseases-such-as-heart-diseases-stroke-and-diabetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/stretching-your-legs-may-help-prevent-diseases-such-as-heart-diseases-stroke-and-diabetes\/","title":{"rendered":"Stretching your legs may help prevent diseases such as heart diseases, stroke and diabetes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>New research published in\u00a0<\/strong><em><strong>The Journal of Physiology\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><strong>shows that\u00a012 weeks of\u00a0easy-to-administer\u00a0passive stretching\u00a0helps improve\u00a0blood flow by\u00a0making it easier for your arteries to dilate\u00a0and decreasing their stiffness.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Passive stretching differs from active stretching in that the former involves an external force (another person&nbsp;or gravity) stretching you, whereas active stretching is performed on your own.&nbsp;The changes they observed&nbsp;in&nbsp;blood vessels&nbsp;could&nbsp;have implications for&nbsp;diseases,&nbsp;including the number one global killer, heart disease.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Researchers at the University of Milan&nbsp;assigned 39 healthy participants of both sexes to two groups. The control group didn\u2019t undergo any stretching.&nbsp;The&nbsp;experimental group&nbsp;performed&nbsp;leg&nbsp;stretches 5 times a week for 12 weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Researchers&nbsp;evaluated&nbsp;the&nbsp;effect of&nbsp;passive&nbsp;stretching on the blood flow locally&nbsp;and in the upper arm. They found that the arteries in both the lower leg and upper arm&nbsp;had&nbsp;increased blood flow&nbsp;and dilation when stimulated, along with&nbsp;decreased&nbsp;stiffness.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both of these&nbsp;changes&nbsp;may&nbsp;have implications&nbsp;for&nbsp;diseases&nbsp;such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes&nbsp;as they are characterized by changes in blood flow control,&nbsp;due to an impaired&nbsp;vascular&nbsp;system.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If this study is replicated in patients with&nbsp;vascular&nbsp;disease, it could&nbsp;indicate whether or not this training method could&nbsp;serve as a new drug-free treatment for improving&nbsp;vascular&nbsp;health and reducing disease risk,&nbsp;especially in people with lower mobility.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moreover, stretching may also be used during hospitalisation or after surgical interventions, in order to preserve the vascular health when patients have low mobility. It can be also performed at home by carers or family members.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Emiliano Ce, an author on the paper said:\u00a0\u00a0&#8220;This new application of stretching is especially relevant in the current pandemic period of increased confinement to our homes, where the possibility of performing beneficial training to improve and prevent heart disease, stroke and other conditions is limited.\u00a0&#8220;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Passive stretching differs from active stretching in that the former involves an external force (another person or gravity) stretching you, whereas active stretching is performed on your own. The changes they observed in blood vessels could have implications for diseases, including the number one global killer, heart disease. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,4,35],"tags":[802,1756,694,2200,1261,43,901],"class_list":["post-6088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-wellness-2","category-newsmakers","category-wellness-2","tag-exercise","tag-heart-attack","tag-heart-disease","tag-heart-failure","tag-heart-health","tag-kegel-exercise","tag-tummy-exercise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6090,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6088\/revisions\/6090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}