Effect of Aerobic Exercise on Blood Pressure of Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: hypertension is one of the prevalent and dangerous complications of diabetes mellitus. as it is difficult to control hypertension, the necessity of using new techniques such as non-pharmaceutical methods and complementary therapy increased. this study aimed to determine the effect of aerobic exercise on the blood pressure of patients with type 2 diabetes. methods: this study was a quasi-experimental randomized trial conducted on 67 volunteered patients with type 2 diabetes. the participants were randomly assigned to aerobic exercise (n = 33) and control (n = 34) groups. the exercise group walked 30 minutes, 3 days a week for 8 consecutive weeks. systolic and diastolic blood pressure of the samples were measured before and after the intervention. the data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, the kolmogorov- smirnov test, paired t test, independent t test, and chi-square test using spss (v. 16). p value less than 0.05 was considered significant. results: the difference between the systolic and diastolic blood pressure of the groups before the intervention was not significant (p > 0.05). after the intervention, there was no significant difference in terms of systolic and diastolic blood pressure of the exercise group compared with the baseline (p > 0.05). no significant difference was determined between groups in terms of systolic and diastolic blood pressure after the intervention (p > 0.05). conclusion: according to the findings, 8 weeks of aerobic exercise (walking) did not reduce systolic and diastolic blood pressure in patients with type 2 diabetes.