13th International Congress
THE "NEW FRONTIERS"
OF ARRHYTHMIAS 1998

January 24-31, 1998
Marilleva, Trento, Italy

RT-233

Heart rate variability in essential hypertension. Assessment by heart rate spectral analysis

Gaetano Diricatti, Vincenzo Cupelli*, Paolo Manetti, Loira Toncelli, Bruno Cappelli, Giorgio Galanti**, Gian Franco Gensini.
*Istituto di Medicina del Lavoro, **Scuola di Medicina Sportiva, Istituto di Clinica Medica Generale e Cardiologia, Universita di Firenze, Italy

Introduction

Hypertension is a major risk factor for development of cardiovascular disease.

Although blood pressure can usually be lowered by administration of appropriate antihypertensive medication, pharmacological treatment has been shown not to reduce mortality in coronary artery disease. For this reason more attention has been focused on non-pharmacological intervention.

Several studies have suggested that adeguate physical training can reduce blood pressure in some patients with mild to moderate essential hypertension^1,2. Mechanisms underlying the hypotensive effect of physical training involve important changes in the neural activity³.

The aim of the present study was to assess how exercise training can affect the response to both dynamic and isometric exercise in hypertensive patients by means of power spectral analysis of heart rate variability⁴.