Summa Health System and Kent State University have received a $545,000 grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health to study the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction and progressive muscle relaxation on people with prehypertension. The Stress Management in Lifestyle Enhancement (SMiLE) study is an eight-week program that will examine whether or not adding stress management to a healthy lifestyle will help lower blood pressure.
Approximately 30 million Americans suffer from prehypertension, or blood pressure that is too high. Pre-hypertensive blood pressure is in the range of 120-139 Systolic/ 80-89 Diastolic, with hypertension starting at 140/90. Although most people with prehypertension will develop hypertension, they generally are not treated with medication at this stage.
“Each year, more and more Americans are diagnosed with high blood pressure,” says Summa Study Investigator and Kent State Assistant Professor of Psychology Joel Hughes, Ph.D. “The goal of the SMiLE Study is to identify treatment options during the prehypertensive stage. Doing so will lead to a healthier community and, hopefully, a reversal of the growing number of people with heart disease.”
As part of a mindfulness-based treatment, study participants will use meditation and thinking strategies to help reduce stress. Participants using progressive muscle relaxation will apply alternating tensing and relaxing of muscles to produce a calm feeling and stress reduction. All participants will have their blood pressure regularly monitored throughout the study.
Individuals may be eligible for this study if they are between the ages of 30 and 60, their blood pressure is elevated but not yet categorized as hypertensive, they are not taking medicine to treat high blood pressure and they are willing to commit to either the mindfulness-based stress reduction treatment or the progressive muscle relaxation-based stress reduction treatment.
Other study investigators include Dr. Richard Josephson, director of cardiology research and education at Summa Health System, Rodney Myerscough, Ph.D., clinical psychologist at Summa Health System and David Fresco, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Kent State University. For additional information about the SMiLE Study, call 330-375-6272 or visit www.smilestudy.org.
About Kent State University
Founded in 1910 as a teaching school, today Kent State University is the largest residential university in Northeast Ohio. Serving more than 34,000 students and offering more than 282 academic programs at the associate, baccalaureate, master’s and doctoral levels, Kent State ranks among the nation’s 77 public research universities demonstrating a high level of research activity by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Kent State earns national recognition for its breadth of high-quality undergraduate programs balanced with innovative research and graduate studies in selected areas.
About Summa Health System
Summa Health System is one of the largest organized delivery systems in Ohio. Encompassing a network of hospitals, community health centers, a health plan, a physician-hospital organization, research and a foundation, Summa is nationally renowned for excellence in patient care and for exceptional approaches to health care delivery. Summa's clinical services are consistently recognized by U.S. News and World Report and Solucient. For more information, visit www.summahealth.org.