AlumniResearch & Discovery
July 7, 2026 | Anna Zarra Aldrich, College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources
Exercise’s affect on blood pressure hasn’t always been well understood, but one UConn researcher and her collaborators are continuing to shed light on this important topic
In 1981, a researcher at Mount Sinai School of Medicine named William Fitzgerald noticed something strange – his blood pressure was lower after going for a jog
This anecdotal observation launched a robust investigation into this phenomenon, which would later be identified as post-exercise hypotension (PEH). One of the leaders in this field is College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Re researcher, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of kinesiology Linda Pescatello
Alongside lead author Milton Rocha Moraes, assistant professor in the Department of Physical Education at the Federal University of Paraíba in Brazil, Pescatello has published a review article in the Journal of Human Hypertension that highlights the history, current state, and open questions in this field
What was the state of PEH research when you first entered the field?
LP: I don’t want to use the word nonexistent, but it was. It had been around for 100 years, but it was the Circulation paper I published in 1991 that began to put PEH on the map. I did my master’s at UConn, and during that time I had the opportunity to work with a preventive cardiologist. So, I started my career in cardiac rehabilitation
Tell me about your first major study
LP: When the patients [at New Britain General Hospital, now the Hospital for Central CT] came in to exercise, we’d take their blood pressure. When they left, we would take their blood pressure again. I noticed that it was consistently lower. That was the first observation. Then I got the idea. I said, let’s attach the patients to ambulatory blood pressure monitors. We will exercise them, and we’ll have a control condition where they don’t exercise, but they still come into the laboratory. Lo and behold, we clearly saw that exercise significantly lowered blood pressure for up to 13 hours after the exercise session. It gave the clinical world new knowledge that this was something that maybe we should be paying attention to because blood pressure was lower on days the patients exercised than when they did not.
This is something I saw. I wanted to share this broadly, with people around the world. Now it’s brought me, not only national, but international collaborations. We’re small fish in a big sea. But I think this is something very important because hypertension is such a significant public health problem that people learn about, because if you’re on that borderline, this is something you might engage in to avoid going on medication. It just really makes me proud that we’re a leader in this area of research globally.
How have you and others refined and expanded these findings over the years?
LP:Shortly after coming to UConn, in collaboration with Dr. Paul Thompson at Hartford Hospital, my laboratory began to conduct a series of studies that clearly showed this was an important clinical response to exercise. We redefined it as a decrease in blood pressure below control levels after exercise that persists for a major portion of the day. In other words, we confirmed blood pressure is lower for most people on the days they exercised than when they don’t. We have found over the years that in some fortunate individuals, this phenomenon alone can normalize blood pressure throughout the day and maybe even prevent them from going on medication.
Our original hypothesis was that you’re better off working at light and moderate intensity to experience PEH. But unexpectedly, we have found that it’s proportional to exercise intensity, meaning if a person can tolerate it, higher intensity will result in greater blood pressure reductions. Another thing our lab has firmly established is that the greatest blood pressure reductions from exercise occur in those with the highest blood pressure levels to start. We also determined that when patients, using their own blood pressure monitors, can see their blood pressure is lower on the days they exercise this can be used as a behavioral strategy to increase exercise adherence. We’ve also found that when you combine medication with exercise, it works every bit as well, or even better than medication alone.
There was a time when the focus was on aerobic [exercise] – as that was the recommendation, and now we’re seeing other modalities of exercise work as well, which is great news because you can engage in your personal preference, which could also increase exercise adherence. It’s clinically important for a variety of reasons
MRM: PEH is far more than a laboratory curiosity, it is a window into the cardiovascular system’s responsiveness to exercise, and it carries profound clinical implications that the broader scientific community has not yet fully embraced. Our own research has been central to shaping this understanding. In 2012, we published a pioneering study demonstrating, for the first time, that the magnitude of blood pressure reduction observed after a single acute resistance exercise session was equivalent to the chronic reductions achieved after a full 12-week program. Equally important, we showed that this acute hypotensive response became attenuated once the individual had physiologically adapted to training, suggesting that PEH could serve as a powerful, practical predictor of an individual’s responsiveness to exercise. Furthermore, the cardiovascular protection offered by PEH extends well beyond the exercise session itself. Blood pressure reductions following exercise have been documented to persist for up to 48 to 72 hours after the last session, providing a meaningful and clinically relevant window of protection.
Why did you choose to do this review now?
MRM: The spark came from an article I stumbled upon that beautifully mapped global trends in exercise and hypertension research. What truly caught my attention, however, was that both [Pescatello’s] name and mine appeared among the most prolific authors worldwide on the topic of exercise and hypertension. Bingo! I saw right there a golden opportunity. If a bibliometric review had already been done on exercise and hypertension broadly, why had no one yet applied the same rigorous <a href="https://healthylife7.com/obesity-in-guernsey-needs-whole-systems-approach/” title=”Obesity in Guernsey needs 'whole systems approach'”>approach specifically and exclusively to PEH as an acute or subacute response? That gap was our open door, and we walked right through it. I have spent more than 25 years as a researcher and educator deeply invested in this phenomenon, and I genuinely believe that PEH remains one of the most clinically underexplored tools we have for non-pharmacological blood pressure management. This review felt not only timely, but necessary.
What are some of the key take-home messages from the paper?
MRM:We need to build broader, more inclusive international research networks. What [Pescatello] is doing through her vast global network of collaborators is exactly what our field needs more of. She is actively bridging the gap, and I use that word intentionally, between researchers across continents, building the kind of trust and synergy that produces truly impactful science. We must all follow that example
This is the first-ever bibliometric review on PEH — and it reveals both our strengths and our gaps. Brazilian researchers lead in publication output, but the quality and methodological rigor of our studies must continue to improve to reach the standard set by our American colleagues
Finally, artificial intelligence is transforming research, but it will never replace the wisdom of experienced scientists. Today artificial intelligence collaborates alongside researchers, accelerating processes, expanding our capacity to read and synthesize data, and minimizing errors. That is precisely what we did in this study – using advanced bibliometric analysis powered by AI-assisted tools, we produced a high-quality, peer-reviewed article in just over six months, work that would have taken well over a year by traditional methods. However, and I cannot stress this enough, the expertise of the researchers involved was absolutely decisive in this paper’s acceptance and impact. The ability to think strategically, to draw on decades of accumulated experience, to know which questions are worth asking and which findings truly matter – that is something no algorithm can replicate. Not yet. Not ever.
What are some future avenues for research?
LP: There’s continual evidence coming out, that neuromotor exercise, in addition to aerobic and resistance, lowers blood pressure. But the studies aren’t done rigorously enough. It’s still limited, even though the evidence is out there that it works. I would recommend that people adhere to control trials that rigorously account for potential confounders in not just the blood pressure response, but the exercise response in general
MRM: From a scientific standpoint, our review identified several critical gaps that the field must urgently address: the need for standardized blood pressure assessment methodologies across PEH studies another area that Pescatello’s lab has addressed, greater utilization of biomarkers to elucidate physiological mechanisms, and expanded research in clinically high-risk and underrepresented populations, including older adults and individuals with cardiometabolic or renal comorbidities. No direct studies have yet examined whether acute exercise-induced blood pressure reductions translate into improved long-term survival outcomes, although PEH can be used to predict exercise responsiveness so one would think this would be the case. That remains one of the most important unanswered questions in our field, and one that I hope future research will address head-on. Additionally, this review was limited to the Scopus database. Expanding to other major databases in future studies will almost certainly paint a more complete, and perhaps quite different, picture of the global PEH landscape.
This work relates to CAHNR’s Strategic Vision area focused on Enhancing Health and Well-Being Locally, Nationally, and Globally
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