[Problems of adaptation in hypertension research (author's transl)]

Emotional stress testing was performed twice in 12 normotensive and 12 hypertensive patients. When compared with normotensive persons, hypertensive patients had a clearly greater adaptation of blood pressure response in second stress test. This effect was so pronounced that differences between normotensive and hypertensive persons observed in the first test disappeared. Because of this pronounced adaptation effect, demonstrated until now only for emotional stress, intraindividual comparison does not seem a method of choice in the evaluation of antihypertensive effects by stress situations. Specific influence of antihypertensive drugs on emotional blood pressure reactions can only be demonstrated in the inter-individual comparison with another antihypertensive drug. First comparison between both groups should only be done after establishing a therapeutic effect on resting blood pressure.