Background: Besides their prognostic impact blood pressure and peak heart rate are widely used endpoint parameters for incremental exercise tests. Reference equations and ranges on both are sparse.
Objective: This study aims to describe prediction equations and reference ranges for systolic and diastolic blood pressure as well as for peak heart rate assessed during a symptom limited incremental exercise test based on a population based study--the Study of Health in Pomerania.
Design: For this purpose, 1708 individuals aged 25-85 years underwent cardiopulmonary exercise testing.
Results: After exclusion of subjects with cardiopulmonary diseases and antihypertensive medications regression analyses revealed age, sex and body mass index as statistically significant interfering factors. In accordance, prediction equations and reference ranges for blood pressure and peak heart rate with respect to sex, age and BMI have been established.
Conclusion: This study provides a reliable set of prediction equations for blood pressure and heart rate values at peak exercise, assessed in a general population over a wide age range.
Keywords: Blood pressure; Exercise; Heart rate; Reference values.
Copyright © 2013 Australian and New Zealand Society of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeons (ANZSCTS) and the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.