Brooklyn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Raises Funds and Awareness for Pulmonary Hypertension Association

Brooklyn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the city’s leading consortium of martial arts schools across Bensonhurst, Cobble Hill, Clinton Hill, Dyker Heights and Gravesend, is showing its commitment to supporting charities by pledging funds raised all throughout last month to the Pulmonary Hypertension Association to help fund patient services and urgent research programs geared towards finding better treatments and an eventual cure for the disease.

This premier martial arts network first found its inspiration to support the PHA’s cause in a student who had a family member who recently received a diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension. The organization then launched local initiatives and activities right inside and outside their classrooms, to help raise funds and awareness.

“We jumped at the chance to raise awareness for this important cause,” says Professor Jason Lynch. “Our work is about teaching people to live healthier lives, and PHA is fulfilling a likeminded mission. We see this is as a way for us to get personally involved in the cause on a larger level.”

Lynch goes on to say that supporting the PHA felt like a natural fit because the BBJJ is all about honing physical fitness, and improving mental toughness, self-discipline and well-being.

“We believe in serving our communities by raising the standards of health and fitness for our students, and then encouraging them to share that with the world at large,” says Lynch. “PHA and pulmonary hypertension awareness was a great way to do it.”

About the Pulmonary Hypertension Association

The Pulmonary Hypertension Association is a community-based nonprofit that relies on donations to fund its many programs, including the nation’s largest PH patient and caregiver support group network, lifesaving early diagnosis awareness and education programs, specialty care resources, and research to find ways to prevent and cure PH.

In other PH news, recent research has indicated that researchers may have been wrong all along when it comes to recommending exercise to people with pulmonary hypertension. In a study conducted by researchers from the University of Indiana-Purdue entitled “Novel assessment of haemodynamic kinetics with acute exercise in a rat model of pulmonary arterial hypertension” and published in Experimental Physiology, rats with pulmonary hypertension were allowed to exercise in specific ways to see if this worsened or improved pulmonary hypertension. Surprisingly, their condition improved after short periods of significant exercise followed by longer periods of low intensity exercise. The heart function improved as well in the rat subjects.