Normal exercise blood pressure response in African-American women with parental history of hypertension.
BACKGROUND
Genetic and environmental hypotheses may explain why normotensive persons at high risk of developing hypertension often exhibit greater cardiovascular reactivity to stressors than those at low risk.


METHODS
Pearson's correlation was used to evaluate reproducibility and independent t test to compare the cardiovascular responses to 30 W of exercise of normotensive young adult African-American women with positive and negative parental histories (PH) of hypertension (PH, n = 23; PH, n = 20).


RESULTS
Correlations were significant for duplicate measurements. The effects of PH on blood pressure measured at rest and during exercise were not statistically significant (P > 0.1). A nearly significant trend for greater resting (.-)VO(2) (P = 0.08) was detected in the PH than in the PH group (3.67 +/- 0.18 versus 3.26 +/- 0.14 mL/kg/min).


CONCLUSIONS
A hyper-reactive blood pressure response to exercise, characteristic of the evolution of hypertension, may not be present among the normotensive female offspring of hypertensive African Americans. The significance of an 11% intergroup difference in the mean resting (.-)VO(2) observed in this study is unclear.
Department of Health, Human Performance and Leisure Studies, College of Medicine Howard University, Washington, DC 20059, USA. vbond@howard.edu
Vernon
V
Bond
Richard M
RM
Millis
R G
RG
Adams
Deborah
D
Williams
Thomas O
TO
Obisesan
Luc M
LM
Oke
Raymond
R
Blakely
Paul
P
Vaccaro
B Don
BD
Franks
Marguerite
M
Neita
Gwendolyn C
GC
Davis
Ometha
O
Lewis-Jack
Charles O
CO
Dotson
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D044383:Black People; D001794:Blood Pressure; D002319:Cardiovascular System; D015331:Cohort Studies; D015444:Exercise; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000378:metabolism; D010290:Parents; D014481:United States
D010100:Oxygen