EGPRN, 2005.

Treating hypertension in diabetics with device guided breathing: a randomized controlled study

Moshe H Schein, MD¹, Ariela Alter, PhD² and Benjamin Gavish, PhD². 1 Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel and 2 InterCure, Israel.

Objective: To assess the efficacy of device-guided breathing to lower blood pressure in diabetic hypertensives.

Design and Methods: A randomized controlled study carried out in an urban family practice clinic in Israel. Non-insulin dependent diabetics with uncontrolled blood pressure, receiving antihypertensive therapy or unmedicated, were enrolled. The intervention group used a device (RESPeRATE, InterCure Ltd, Israel), which interactively guides the user towards slow and regular breathing by synchronizing breathing voluntarily to musical tones, for 15-minutes daily at home for an 8-week period. The control group continued with their regular treatment. Blood pressure (BP) was measured in the clinic at baseline, after 4 weeks and at termination at 8 weeks. Medication was unchanged for 3 weeks prior to and during the study period. The main outcome measure was the office BP change from baseline to the end of the 8-week period.

Results:
Baseline characteristics of 31 patients (15 treatment and 16 controls), 19M/12F were: age 64+9 years (mean + SD); BMI 28 8 kg/m2; 28/31 receiving antihypertensive medication, BP 146 10/81 8mmHg and heart rate 73 10 bpm. The difference in BP change between the treatment and control groups was significant for systolic BP (SBP) 8.4 vs +4.7 mmHg, p=0.007 for comparison between groups. Greater systolic BP reductions were found to be significantly correlated with older age in the treatment group (p<0.01), while there was no such dependence in the control group.

BP value at start and end of study (mean SE in mmHg)
	TREATMENT			CONTROL
	start	end	p-value	start	end	p-value
SBP	146.9± 2.8	138.5± 3.8	0.003	145.0± 2.5	149.7.1± 4.5	N.S.
DBP	81.7± 2.3	78.9± 3.5	N.S.	80.4± 1.6	78.5± 1.7	N.S.

Conclusions: Self-treatment with device-guided breathing at home for 2 months by non-insulin dependent diabetic patients was associated with a significant reduction in office systolic BP.

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