We studied the moderating effects of cardiorespiratory fitness and physical activity on heart rate and blood pressure responses to psychophysiological stressors and the carotid-cardiac baroreflex in young normotensive women with a parental history of hypertension (n=31). Testing occurred during the follicular menstrual phase. Subjects were divided into high versus moderate (46.6±6.5 versus 35.9±1.9 mL-kg^1 • min" 1 ) Vo 2peak and high versus moderate (1217.7±98.4 versus 1015.5±49.4 J-kg" 1 -wk~') physical activity groups. The groups did not differ in heart rate or blood pressure responses to mental arithmetic or the cold-face test. However, the highly fit women had longer maximal R-R intervals compared with the moderately fit women when the carotid-cardiac baroreflex was stimulated by negative pressures applied to the neck during resting conditions (/ ) <.O1). The carotid-cardiac baroreflex was P hysical inactivity is an independent risk factor for coronary heart disease, and regular physical activity has an accepted role in primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular diseases, including mild hypertension.13 However, mechanisms underlying the salutary effect of exercise on cardiovascular health are not fully known and have not received much study in women.
-5Hyperresponsiveness of the sympathetic nervous system to psychophysiological stressors is an established model for studying the etiology of coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, and primary hypertension. 6 -13 Some investigators 14 " 16 have reported that cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with lower sympathetic responsiveness to various stressors (see Crews and Landers 17 for a review), while others 1823 have found no effect (see Peronnet and Szabo 24 for a review). The controversy in this area can be explained partly by a lack of standardization in the measurement of fitness, physical activity, sympathetic activity, and stressor tasks. Few controlled training studies have been reported. Most studies using cross-sectional designs have relied on indirect estimates of fitness or unvalidated self-reports of physical activity. Effects of fitness and physical activity have not been compared directly. Plasma catecholamine levels have been used to estimate sympathetic activity in about a dozen published reports, 2224 but most studies in this area have measured heart rate and blood pressure Received March 29, 1994; accepted in revised form July 1, 1994. From the Department of Exercise Science, The University of Georgia, Athens.Reprint requests to Janet Buckworth, PhD, Exercise Science Laboratory, Georgia College, Milledgeville, GA 31061.© 1994 American Heart Association, Inc.attenuated during mental arithmetic compared with rest in both the moderately fit and moderately active women but not in the highly fit and highly active groups. We find no evidence that aerobic fitness reduces sympathetic responses to laboratory stressors in young women with parental hypertension. Our findings are consistent with greater parasympathetic tone during sy...