Relationship between exercise systolic blood pressure and left ventricular geometry in overweight, mildly hypertensive patients

Objective To examine the association between the graded exercise systolic blood pressure (SBP) response and left ventricular (LV) geometric structure in patients with untreated mild hypertension. Participants The study included 80 sedentary, overweight patients (43 female and 37 male) with unmedicated high normal blood pressure or stage 1-2 hypertension. Methods An echocardiogram was used to determine LV mass and the relative wall thickness (RWT) in relation to the chamber dimension. Participants performed a maximal graded exercise test, and the SBP was recorded at workloads of 2, 4 and 6 metabolic equivalents and at peak exercise. Separate statistical models were used to determine the influence of LV mass indexed for height(2.7) (LVMlh) and RWT on submaximal exercise SBP and peak exercise SBP, controlling for resting SBP, age, gender, ethnicity and body mass index. Results A greater RWT was associated with a higher submaximal SBP level (P = 0.038). Neither LVMlh (P = 0.989) nor the interaction of RWT and LVMlh (P = 0.787) were related to the submaximal SBP. None of the main or interaction effects of RWT and LVMlh were A associated with the peak exercise SBP level. Conclusion Increases in RWT were associated with higher submaximal exercise SBP responses in a sample of overweight, unmedicated hypertensives. These results suggest that RWT is an important determinant of the association between cardiac mass and exercise SBP response. (C) 2004 Lippincott Williams Wilkins.