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Hanging from the ceiling upside down wearing gravity inversion boots can harm your back and send your blood pressure through the roof, according to a Chicago osteopath. After studying 20 volunteers, Dr. Ronald M. Klatz said some effects of the latest health fad were potentially lethal.
The inversion boot, which was popularized by the actor Richard Gere in a film several years ago and is used daily by tens of thousands of people to decompress the spine, may be dangerous for people with severe cardiovascular problems such as hypertension, as well as those with spinal ailments and glaucoma.
Writing in the July issue of The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, Dr. Klatz and other researchers at the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine said they found that blood pressures greatly increased in people who hung upside down for three minutes.
''It should be noted that our subjects were inverted for only three minutes,'' the researchers reported, ''but many individuals participating in this 'fad' hang for 10-to-20-minute periods, with some exercising and lifting weights.''
The results of the blood pressure readings ''were frightening,'' Dr. Klatz said, advising caution for anyone using the boots.