Blood pressure reactivity to mental stress and aerobic fitness in normotensive young adult African-American males with parental history of hypertension

Hypertension (HT) is the leading health problem in the adult African-Americ an (AA) community and is associated with risk factors of stress, physical i nactivity, and family history. We examined the influences of aerobic fitnes s and parental history of HT on blood pressure (BP) reactivity to mental st ress in 60 normotensive young adult AA males. A S-min mental arithmetic tes t was used as a provocative stress. Measurements of peak oxygen uptake (VO2 peak) were used to classify physically active and inactive subjects into gr oups of high and low aerobic fitness. A questionnaire was used to evaluate parental BP histories. Reactivity of BP rc,as indexed by differences in val ues (delta) measured during baseline and stress testing periods. Subjects w ith a parental history of HT (PH+) had significantly higher baseline systol ic BP and mean arterial BP (SBP, MABP) values than subjects with no parenta l history of HT (PH-). Among the group of PH+ subjects, BP reactivity to me ntal stress was its follows: the high aerobic fitness subgroup (VO2peak = 5 4.6 +/- 1.2 ml/kg/min) (n = 15) exhibited a 7.3 +/- 2.0 mmHg rise in SEP an d a 3.2 +/- 2.0 mmHg rise in MABP, and the low aerobic fitness subgroup (VO 2peak = 37.1 +/- 0.7 ml/kg/min) (n = 15) had a 15.8 +/- 2.0 mmHg rise in SE P and an 11.8 +/- 2.0 mmHg rise in MABP (p < 0.05). Among the group of PH- subjects with high and low aerobic fitness (n = 30, 15/group), no differenc es in BP reactivity to mental stress were found. These results suggest that a lifestyle of physical activity associated with a high level of aerobic f itness may attenuate BP reactivity to mental stress and reduce the risk of HT in AA men. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.