MedWire News: Children should be encouraged to exercise more to reduce their blood pressure levels and their risk of heart disease in later life, say UK researchers.

Dr Sam Leary, from the University of Bristol, and colleagues found that children who are very active have lower blood pressure levels than their less active counterparts. And it appears that the amount of physical activity is more important than the intensity for reducing blood pressure levels in children.

"Any activity other than lying or sitting contributes to the total volume of activity. So just walking to school instead of going by car is beneficial. Even hiding the TV remote could help," said Dr Leary.

The researchers studied data on more than 5000 children who were participating in a long-term UK health study.

Between the ages of 11 and 12 years, all the children had their blood pressure levels checked and were asked to wear exercise monitoring devices for up to a week to record their levels of physical activity.

The team found that children whose overall physical activity levels were 17% higher than normal had blood pressure levels that were around 1% lower than the average for the group.

"A 1% difference in blood pressure doesn't sound like much, but it could be clinically significant over the long term," said Dr Leary.

He concluded: "Our findings suggest that encouraging children to be more active may help reduce their current blood pressure, which is likely to track into adulthood and reduce their risk of heart disease."

The research is published in the journal Hypertension.