This study sought to investigate whether individuals with hypertension were involved in a level of physical activity complying to the new US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) physical activity guidelines and to compare this population to individuals without hypertension from a large nationally representative, state-based cohort of adults. This study cohort included 391,017 adults from the 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The current DHHS physical activity recommendations are a minimum of 150 weekly minutes of moderate to intense physical activity (MIPA) or 75 weekly minutes of vigorous physical activity (VIPA), or an equivalent combination of MIPA and VIPA. Results showed that 60.2 % of US adults with self-reported hypertension met the current DHHS physical activity recommendations. However, it was less than their nonhypertensive counterparts who engaged at 66.9%. Although a majority of hypertensives did meet physical activity recommendations, it was found that the group of hypertensives that did not were more likely than nonhypertensives not to meet the recommendations. These findings suggest that adults with hypertension are less active overall than adults without hypertension.
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