title: Blood pressure variability in relation to autonomic nervous system dysregulation: the X-CELLENT study.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of autonomic nervous system dysregulation with blood pressure variability. Among the 2370 participants in the X-CELLENT study, 577 patients (59.0±10.2 years) were randomly selected to participate in an ancillary ambulatory blood-pressure monitoring study. We proposed a novel autonomic nervous system regulation index termed dSBP/dHR, which was defined as the steepness of the slope of the relationship between the 24-h systolic blood pressure (SBP) and the heart rate (HR) for each participant. Within-subjects s.d. of SBP, weighted for the time interval between consecutive validated readings from 24-h ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, was used to evaluate blood pressure variability. When dSBP/dHR was divided into tertiles, we observed a progressive increase from tertile 1 to tertile 3 in the daytime SBP, a progressive decrease in nighttime SBP, and consequently a progressive increase in the day-night SBP gradient (P<0.001). The s.d. of both daytime and nighttime SBPs were consistently and significantly increased from tertile 1 to tertile 3 (P<0.01). Both before and after adjustment for age, gender and 24-h mean blood pressure, all of these increasing and decreasing trends reached statistical significance (P<0.01). Furthermore, in our sensitivity analysis, when men and women were considered separately, the findings remained unaltered. In summary, autonomic nervous system dysfunction was associated with a heightened day-night SBP gradient and more variable SBP over 24 h in patients with essential hypertension.
authors: Paris Descartes University, Paris, France.
authors: Yi
authors: Y
authors: Zhang
authors: Davide
authors: D
authors: Agnoletti
authors: Jacques
authors: J
authors: Blacher
authors: Michel E
authors: ME
authors: Safar
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001341:Autonomic Nervous System / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D018660:Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged