Effects of Post-Exercise Hypotension After A Graded Exercise Test

The purpose of the study was to explore post-exercise hyoptension (PEH) responses after a graded exercise test. PEH has been recommended by physicians to help physiologically control hypertension in patients. Recent studies have tried to find the relationships between PEH and hypertensive individuals but the results have been inconclusive, although certain studies have found that individuals with pre-hypertension tend to decrease their blood pressure the most. This study was a approved by the TAMU-SA IRB and all subjects provided written consent. Subjects were asked to not eat a heavy meal or consume caffeine three hours prior to testing. After sitting for five minutes, subject\u27s blood pressure was measured by the investigator using a sphygmomanometer, after which they performed a treadmill test to exhaustion (VO2max) using the Bruce protocol. Immediately post exercise (IPE) subjects sat down and BP was measured. Subjects remained seated and were measured at 5, 10, and 15 minutes post-exercise. Based upon the VO2max results, the sample was divided into higher (\u3e 40.8 ml/kg/min, Age= 24.8 +/- 3.5 yrs, Ht= 170.0 +/- 8.6 cm, Wt 72.20+/- 13.3 kg, BMI = 24.8 +/- 3.0) and lower fit (\u3c 40.8 ml/kg/min, Age = 28.2 +/- 9.1 yrs, Ht= 164.9 +/- 7.4 cm, Wt= 82.8 +/- 20.8 kg, BMI= 30.4+/- 7.1) groups and a 2 (category) X 5 (time) factorial ANOVA was used to explore differences between groups and time-points. Alpha was set t .05 for all tests. While there were no significant differences in systolic and diastolic BP readings at any time-points between higher and lower fit groups (P\u3e.05), there was only a significant main effect of time on diastolic BP at the 5, 10, and 15 min points