Leptin is associated with heart rate recovery in Chinese hypertensive patients

Elevated serum leptin concentrations are closely related to sympathetic nervous system activation in essential hypertension (EH); however, it is not clear whether or not they are associated with parasympathetic nervous system impairment in EH. Heart rate recovery (HRR) is a reproducible method used to assess parasympathetic activity. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between serum leptin and HRR in Chinese untreated EH patients. This was a cross-sectional study enrolling 471 Chinese EH patients (205 men, 266 women; mean age 63.1 years). HRR was calculated during an incremental cardiopulmonary exercise test. Simple and multiple regression analyses were used to assess the correlation between serum leptin level and HRR value. Serum leptin levels elevated with increasing BP values. Moreover, univariate analysis revealed that the HRR value was negatively correlated with serum leptin (r = -0.037, P < 0.01). In multiple regression analysis, the age-adjusted serum leptin level was negatively correlated with HRR (β = -0.268, P < 0.01). Serum leptin remained negatively associated with HRR (β = -0.017, P < 0.01) after further adjustments for factors including age, systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, and several factors that correlated with HRR. Our findings demonstrated that a raised serum leptin concentration is related to HRR blunt, which suggests that the role of leptin in the development of EH might be associated with impairment of the parasympathetic nervous system as well.