Does Acute Catastrophic Psychological Stress Disrupt Diurnal Cardiovascular Variability?

Abstract

To the Editor: Prof Parati et al1 reported an interesting case in which ambulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring was performed at the time of an earthquake (4.7 on Richter scale), which demonstrated than acute catastrophic psychological stress can raise BP and heart rate in an ambulatory setting. In a recent study,2 we investigated earthquake-induced BP elevation in elderly hypertensive outpatients (mean age, 69 years) living near the epicenter of the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake (7.2 on Richter scale). In this population, in which BP had been measured before the earthquake, clinic systolic and diastolic BP were 14 mm Hg and 6 mm Hg higher during the first 2 weeks after the earthquake while major aftershocks persisted, but returned to baseline by 3 to 5 weeks. There is thus a discrepancy between Dr Parati’s case and our hypertensive patients. In Dr Parati’s case, although pronounced BP variability persisted throughout the following 6 hours, the earthquake-induced BP elevation lasted only 1 hour. In our study,2 the BP elevation varied according to whether the patients had microalbuminuria: in those who did not, BP returned completely to the baseline value 4 weeks after the earthquake, but in those who had microalbuminuria, the BP increase was prolonged for at least 2 months. Microalbuminuria is closely related to endothelial cell dysfunction, and the different time courses in BP recovery after the earthquakes between Parati’s case and our report might be owing to differences in endothelial cell function and to the persistence of aftershocks. Parati’s patient was a young (34-year-old) normotensive (BP 130/85 mm Hg) woman without any target organ damage. Even in the absence of target organ damage, acute stress might affect nocturnal BP. Parati’s case seems to show a …