Elsevier

The Lancet

Volume 293, Issue 7597, 5 April 1969, Pages 692-694
The Lancet

ORIGINAL ARTICLES
BLOOD-PRESSURE AND CATECHOLAMINE EXCRETION AFTER MENTAL STRESS IN LABILE HYPERTENSION

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(69)92645-2Get rights and content

Abstract

The effect of mild mental stress on blood-pressure and excretion of free adrenaline and noradrenaline in the urine was studied in seventeen controls and twenty patients with mild labile hypertension. The mean ages of the two groups were 31·4 and 35·2 years and the mean resting prestress pressures were 117/75 and 147/95 mm. Hg, respectively. The mean basal excretion-rates of the catecholamines were not significantly different. The stress, which was of 40 minutes' duration and required the solution of visual puzzles, led to changes in systolic and diastolic pressures which were significantly greater in the hypertensive patients. The output of adrenaline rose in all subjects and was significantly greater among the hypertensives. The output of noradrenaline rose in seventeen hypertensives but in only nine controls and the mean poststress value and the mean change in excretion were significantly higher in the hypertensive patients. The changes in blood-pressure were significantly correlated with the changes in catecholamine output in the thirty-seven subjects studied. Labile hypertensive patients show on the average a heightened sympathetic response to mental stress.

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