Immediate effect of cool spinal bath on blood pressure of healthy volunteers – Results of a single arm study

Abstract

IntroductionHydrotherapy is the use of water in various forms for treating diseases. Traditionally, spinal baths have been a common hydrotherapy technique prescribed for treating high blood pressure. However, despite such traditional use there have been no documented studies conducted to scientifically evaluate this indication. This study is an attempt to examine traditional claims and possible mechanisms of spinal baths and their effect on blood pressure. Materials and methodsFifty healthy volunteers were randomly selected from medical students enrolled in a naturopathic programme. The participants were of both sexes aged between 18 and 25 years. A cool (26±1°C) spinal bath was given to each of the participants for 15min. The outcome measures were resting blood pressure, body temperature, pulse rate and breathing rate. Results47 participants completed the study (male 19%, female 81%), all the participants have shown significant reduction in blood pressure (p<.001), pulse rate (p<.001) and body temperature (p<.001) but breathing rate was not significant. DiscussionA cool spinal bath for 15min has shown a significant short-term reduction in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure, pulse rate and temperature which indicate that a cool spinal immersion may potentially have a role in managing hypertension. However, these observations are based on a short-term single arm pre-post design on normotensive students, and large scale randomised control trials over a longer period are needed to warrant better results.