Elevated Sympathetic Activity Was Correlated With Blood Pressure Level In Young-Middle Aged Hypertensive Patients Of Shenzhen

Objectives: To investigate current status of blood pressure and heart rate in young-middle aged hypertensive patients form 25 Shenzhen hospitals, and provide scientific basis for hypertension management and intervention strategy. Methods: A sampling method of questionnaire for cross-sectional survey was employed in this study from July 2017 to Jan 2018. The young-middle aged hypertensive patients (YHPs, age < 65) and old hypertensive patients (OHPs, age > 65) were enrolled, whose blood pressure, gender, heart rate, disease history were investigated. The sympathetic activity was evaluated by heart rate and high sympathetic activity was defined as heart rate > 80 bpm. Results: 2815 hypertensive patients were enrolled in this study, including 722 OHPs and 2093 YHPs. The average diastolic pressure as well as average heart rate significantly increased in YHPs (vs OHPs, P < 0.001). In YHPs, 1379 male patients and 714 female patients were enrolled. No significant difference occurred in blood pressure level between female and male YHPs (P > 0.05), however, the average heart rate significantly increased in male YHPs (vs female YHPs, P = 0.001). In YHPs regardless of gender, heart rate were positively correlated with systolic blood pressure (r = 0.403,P < 0.001) as well as diastolic blood pressure (r = 0.494,P < 0.001). In YHPs accompanied with cardiovascular diseases or not, the average blood pressure level significantly increased in patients with high sympathetic activity compared that in patients with low sympathetic activity (P < 0.001). Results from Logistic regression analysis indicated that uncontrolled hypertension is a risk factor of coronary heart disease (95% CI: 1.037–1.527, P = 0.02), however, heart rate was not a risk factor of coronary heart disease (95% CI:0.763–1.127,P = 0.45). Conclusion: Elevated sympathetic activity occurred i