Cardiovascular response to mental stress in offspring of hypertensive parents: The Dutch Hypertension and Offspring Study

Objective: To compare blood pressure-regulating mechanisms during mental stress in two groups of offspring with contrasting risk for hypertension. Design: Cardiovascular reactivity to two different types of mental stressors was studied in adolescents and young adults with two hypertensive or two normotensive parents. The two tasks used were intended to evoke either a predominantly adrenergic cardiac response (a memory search task) or a predominantly vascular response (a reaction-time task with visual search and tone avoidance). Methods: Blood pressure and heart rate were recorded at rest and d... Mehr ...