Exercise blood pressure in young adults as a predictor of future blood pressure: a 12-year follow-up of medical school graduates.

Abstract

It has not been fully clarified whether exercise blood pressure (BP) in young adult men and women is useful to predict future BP, especially in Asian people. A long-term prospective study was conducted in graduates of a medical school in Japan; 138 men and 76 women whose mean age was 19.8 and 19.2, respectively, at baseline. A 5-min exercise tolerance test was performed at baseline, and BP immediately after exercise was measured. BP at 50% intensity exercise was also calculated. Multiple regression analysis was carried out to clarify the relationship of exercise BP at baseline to follow-up BP after an average of 12 years. In multivariate-adjusted models, the relationship of systolic blood pressure (SBP) at follow-up was stronger to SBP immediately after exercise (F=7.7, P=0.006) than to resting SBP (F=3.7, P=0.055) in men. The models in men showed that SBP immediately after exercise was a stronger predictor of follow-up SBP than SBP at 50% intensity exercise, and the results were similar for diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in men. For SBP in women, resting SBP was the strongest predictor of follow-up SBP (F=14.3, P<0.001), and exercise SBP was not significant predictor. For DBP in women, any DBP at rest or after exercise was not significantly related to DBP at follow-up. In young adult men, SBP and DBP immediately after exercise would be a stronger predictor of future SBP and DBP rather than BP at rest. However, in young adult women, resting SBP rather than exercise SBP would be better to predict future SBP.