Mental stress reactivity and post stress recovery of cardiovascular parameters in an Indian late adolescent population

The complete characteristics of essential hypertension have not been unraveled. Stress reactivity and post-stress recovery perturbations have been suggested as possible identifiers for future development of hypertension in susceptible individuals, but these aspects are not uniformly seen across all the races. The aim of this study was to observe stress reactivity and post-stress recovery status of various cardiovascular parameters to a mental stress task in an Indian subpopulation. Twenty nine normotensive students with positive family history of hypertension and equal number of age, height, weight and BMI (Body Mass Index) matched controls were asked to perform a serial subtraction task. Blood pressure (Systolic and Diastolic) and heart rate were measured at rest, during cognitive task, one minute and five minute post recovery. The parameters were analyzed by using unpaired student’s‘t’ test. There was a slight increase in blood pressure (Systolic and Diastolic) and heart rate in normotensive subjects with a positive family history of hypertension (but were statistically insignificant) in response to mental arithmetic (MA) task. Both subjects and controls also showed good recovery of all cardiovascular parameters. Our study found neither an exaggerated stress response to mental stress nor an impaired recovery after mental arithmetic task in normotensive offspring’s with parental history of hypertension. Because stress reactivity varies in different populations, hence stress reactivity may not be a good measure of predicting future risk of hypertension.