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Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol 54, Issue 4 436-446, Copyright © 1992 by American Psychosomatic Society

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Diminished pulse pressure response to psychological stress: early precursor of essential hypertension?

CK Ewart and KB Kolodner
Health Services Research and Development Center, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, MD.

An excessive blood pressure response to mental stress is a widely reported characteristic of young normotensive offspring of hypertensive parents. At odds with these reports are data from a large biracial study showing that high risk adolescent offspring had diminished pulse pressure under mental stress and no evidence of greater blood pressure reactivity. We examined this apparent contradiction in a similar but larger sample of 213 normotensive adolescents, comparing blood pressure and heart rate responses to video game, mirror drawing, mental arithmetic, interview, and physical exercise in high- and low-risk offspring. Results replicated the diminished pulse pressure finding, suggesting it is characteristic of African Americans and is evoked by behavioral tasks that entail skeletal-motor inhibition. Submaximal physical exercise failed to discriminate between offspring groups. Possible biologic correlates of diminished pulse pressure in black adolescents with "high normal" blood pressure warrant further investigation.




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Copyright © 1992 by the American Psychosomatic Society