Physical Activity and Blood Pressure Reactivity in Young Women with a Family History of Hypertension

Abstract

Healthy normotensive young adults with a positive family history of hypertension (+FH) have increased risk of developing hypertension. Our laboratory has recently demonstrated that young normotensive women +FH display exaggerated blood pressure (BP) reactivity to acute laboratory stressors. Regular aerobic physical activity has been shown to attenuate BP reactivity in populations at risk for future hypertension, however it is unknown whether regular physical activity modulates BP reactivity in +FH young women.PurposeTo test the hypothesis that young women with +FH reporting regular aerobic physical activity would demonstrate blunted BP reactivity compared to sedentary +FH women.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed beat‐by‐beat mean arterial pressure (MAP; Finometer) in 14 young women with +FH during three sympathoexcitatory maneuvers: two minutes of a cold pressor test (CPT), two minutes of isometric handgrip exercise at 30% of maximal voluntary contraction (HG), and three minutes of post‐exercise ischemia (PEI). Physical activity data were self‐reported on a standard medical history questionnaire. Women who reported at least four days of aerobic physical activity per week (thus exceeding minimum guidelines) were considered regularly active (+PA; n=7), and less than three days per week were inactive (−PA; n=6). Dare are presented as mean ± SD.ResultsResting MAP (−PA: 75±10 vs. +PA: 83±18 mmHg: P=0.26) and resting heart rate (HR) (−PA: 75±10 vs. +PA: 60±7 bpm: P=0.06) were not different between groups. BP reactivity during the CPT (ΔMAP: −PA 11±3 vs. +PA 13±7 mmHg, P=0.97), HG (ΔMAP: −PA 18±6 vs.+PA 23±12 mmHg, P=0.71), and PEI (ΔMAP: −PA 14±5 vs. +PA 22±10 mmHg, P=0.16) were not different between groups. Additionally, HR responses during the CPT (ΔHR: −PA 6±8 vs.+PA 4±7 bpm, P=0.74), HG (ΔHR: −PA 14±9 vs. +PA 20±11 bpm, P=0.27) and PEI (ΔHR: −PA 8±8 vs. +PA 3±9 bpm, P=0.45) were not different between groups.ConclusionsThese preliminary data suggest that self‐reported regular aerobic physical activity may not modulate BP responses to sympathoexcitatory stimuli in young women with +FH.Support or Funding InformationSupported by NIH Grant P20 GM 113125, P20 GM 103446, U54 GM 104941, and The University of Delaware Research FoundationThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.