[Lifestyle] Hong Kong study finds lifestyle coaching helps residents lower blood pressure

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Around half of Hongkongers with pre-hypertension who joined a personalised healthy lifestyle coaching programme have seen their blood pressure return to normal after six months, a local university has found.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) on Tuesday released the findings of a study focused on its Jockey Club We WATCH Healthy Lifestyle Project, which targets middle-aged people to help them prevent chronic diseases.

The study, conducted from 2022 to 2025, covered 4,399 participants aged between 35 and 59, who were at high risk of developing chronic diseases.

It also found that 51 per cent of participants with borderline or high blood lipids had achieved normal lipid levels, while 48 per cent of those with pre-diabetes had their blood glucose restored to healthy levels.

Professor Samuel Wong Yeung-shan, director of the university’s School of Public Health and Primary Care, said the findings showed significant improvements in the biometric parameters among participants with higher-risk conditions.

“Instead of saying you are obese, you need to change, we say, what do you want to change and how do the changes affect and facilitate your life goals?” he said, noting that the project eschewed “traditional, conventional medicine where you have a more didactic and paternalistic approach”.

“You really need to think about whether the person would find that change appropriate at this point in their life.”

The participants took part in six months of personalised health management coaching and wore a smartwatch to monitor lifestyle biometrics. They also joined activities that focused on diet, physical activity and stress management.

Wong added that there had been few studies in the past that combined medical intervention and personalised coaching, and that CUHK’s not only filled a gap but was also one of the biggest trials.

The programme recruited 7,131 people, with 4,399 completing the course. Among those who joined, 73.8 per cent were women and 26.2 per cent were men.

Around 66 per cent of them were full-time workers, while 9.1 per cent were part-time workers and 9.5 per were homemakers. More than 31 per cent of them worked 40 to 45 hours per week.

The coaching received by participants included physical activity and weight control, stress management, support for smoking and alcohol cessation, motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioural therapy and health guidance.

Among those who had finished the programme, 2,169 of them originally had high low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, also known as “bad cholesterol”, which could increase the risk of coronary heart disease. After the programme, their mean LDL cholesterol level had decreased from 3.94 to 3.79 millimoles per litre.

The 540 participants who had high triglycerides, a type of fat found in blood, also saw the mean level drop from 2.22 to 1.81 millimoles per litre.

Around 54.6 per cent of 666 people initially diagnosed with pre-hypertension saw their blood pressure return to normal levels.

The 415 people with pre-diabetes experienced a mean level reduction from 5.86 to 5.64 millimoles per litre in the relevant indicator.

Wong said they also observed improvements in the participants’ fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity levels and sleep quality, as well as decreases in perceived stress levels and sleep disturbance.

He said the key to the programme’s success was having lifestyle coaches with contextual and localised knowledge, and the ability to understand what mattered to the participants.

“They would [observe] whether there are enough triggers in the environment to facilitate a change you need to see,” he said.

“The importance of that is that if you change or you do the health coaching according to [participants’] needs, the change is likely to be sustainable because they have intrinsic motivation.”

He said the programme helped participants set goals that they felt were important to their lives, such as being healthy enough to travel to the United Kingdom for their grandchildren’s graduation ceremony.

The government in 2023 also rolled out a pilot scheme to provide Hongkongers aged 45 or older with screening and follow-up management for diabetes, hypertension and high blood lipids. The scheme was part of an effort to prevent the rise of chronic diseases in the city.

 

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