BACKGROUND: Flow-mediated dilation (FMD) in terms of blood pressure is impaired and it seems that exercise training can improve it. The present study intended to compare flow-mediated dilation in patients with hypertension and normotensive people and examine the effect of exercise on it. METHODS: In this semi-experimental study, 12 normotensive and 24 hypertensive middle-aged men (age 49.66 +/- 2.80 years, height 174.16 +/- 4.66 cm, weight 81.08 +/- 12.65 kg) were selected using convenience sampling method. Patients were randomly divided to equal groups; 12 for control (age 52.08 +/- 2.53 years, height 173.75 +/- 5.81 cm, weight 80.08 +/- 8.26 kg) and 12 for interval aerobic training (age 50.50 +/- 2.91 years, height 173.4 +/- 4.69 cm, weight 85.2 +/- 13.6 kg). The training included 12 weeks of treadmill interval aerobic running with 50 and 80% heart rate reserve for 2 and 1 minute, respectively, three times a week for totally 12 minutes each session. Each week, 3 minutes to 6th week and then, every two weeks, 3 minutes added to the training time. So that, training in the last two weeks was 36 minutes. Blood pressure and flow-mediated dilation were taken before and after the training period. The distribution normality of data was assessed using Shapiro-Wilk test. FINDINGS: Independent t-test showed that flow-mediated dilation was lower in patients than in normotensive subjects (t = 4.469, p < 0.001). The analysis of variance with repeated measures showed that the training significantly reduced systolic blood pressure (F = 7.059, p = 0.015) and increased flow-mediated dilation (F = 13.63, p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: It seems that, flow-mediated dilation in patients with hypertension is impaired and these patients can do aerobic interval training to relieve pressure and improve endothelial function.

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