To study autonomic variability in offsprings of hypertensive parents in Lucknow using cold pressor test

Abstract

Introduction: Hypertension runs in family, and familial hypertension is one of the most important risk factor for children to become hypertensive in future life. Teenagers comprise very special group that have hypertensive first degree relatives, these should be very closely monitored. Autonomic derangement in the form of increased sympathetic tone has been seen in young offspring’s with a history of hypertension in their parents. Sympathetic nervous system over-activity is reported in hypertension. If we can detect early proneness to hypertension, it may help an individual to lead a healthy life by changing his/her lifestyle and daily activities. Objective: To study sympathetic autonomic variability in offspring’s of hypertensive parents. Materials and Methods: This is a cross sectional study. In this study 52 healthy young subjects (26 study group i.e., offsprings of hypertensive parents and 26 control group i.e., offsprings of non-hypertensive parents) age: 18-25 years both male and female were chosen. The blood pressure of the participants was recorded using a electronic blood pressure instrument (Citizen 432). The participants were asked to immerse their right hand in ice cold water (4 degree Celsius) for 1 minute. At the completion of one minute, blood pressure was measured. Five minutes after the test, the blood pressure was noted again (recovery). Body mass index was also noted of each individual. Results: It is evident from the results that in both study group and controls, a rise in systolic blood pressure occurred as a result of stress induced by cold test but in study group the diastolic blood pressure showed a significant increase whereas in controls it showed no change after stress induced by cold test. In both the study group and controls, the systolic component returned to the baseline value after a duration of 5 minutes of stress (recovery), whereas the diastolic component of controls returned to the baseline value and even below baseline bu