Psychophysiological responses of borderline hypertensives in two experimental situations

Given the contradictory reports concerning psychophysiological reactivity of hypertensives this issue was reexamined. In contrast to the large majority of studies, the hypertensive sample should not be made up of patients in medical care and the control group should be comparable in all relevant aspects other than blood pressure. Twelve male subjects with blood pressure values in the borderline range and 12 normotensive controls were recruited from a blood donation program. Experiments consisted of two parts with baseline, stress and follow-up. Stressors were a short distressing movie and mental arithmetic. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP), heart rate (HR), skin conductance level (SCL) and number of spontaneous electrodermal fluctuations (SF) were assessed in 2-min intervals, plasma adrenaline and noradrenaline once during baselines, stress 2 and follow-up 2. Hypertensives exhibited significantly higher SPB levels, and partially elevated values for DBP, HR and SCL. Response reactions to stressors, however, did not differ between groups. There was no evidence that psychophysiological adaptation during stress and recovery thereafter was impaired in hypertensives. Our results do not support the reactivity hypothesis of hypertension. Possible reasons for our failure to replicate findings from other studies are discussed.