Predictability of blood pressure response to isometric stress.

Isometric exercise causes transient systemic hypertension, but with individual differences. An attempt was made to delineate predictors of those differences by analyzing the blood pressure (BP) response in terms of variables readily measured in clinical practice. For each of 270 office patients, we determined blood pressure, heart rate (HR), electrocardiographic findings, and symptoms in response to maximal isometric and maximal dynamic exercise. For systolic BP response as the predicted measure, 4 predictor variables in combination, including age, sex, resting systolic BP, and maximal treadmill systolic BP, yielded 70% predictability. For diastolic BP, 5 predictors in combination, including handgrip strength, resting diastolic BP, treadmill HR, systolic BP, and diastolic BP, allowed 66% prediction. Not predictive of either were resting HR, abnormality of treadmill test, presence of heart disease, and certain other medical diagnoses.