Narayan P, et al. – This study was performed on Black male Veterans with resistant systemic hypertension to assess the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and all–cause mortality in these subjects. As per findings, the level of cardiorespiratory fitness was inversely associated with all–cause mortality among study participants. In addition, in contrast to the Least–Fit referent group, the High–Fit group had a significant 62% lower risk of all–cause mortality.

Methods

• Researchers identified patients from a cohort undergoing exercise tolerance test at the department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, DC.
• They classified patients into 4 cardiorespiratory fitness categories based on age-specific peak metabolic equivalents achieved on a standard Bruce protocol.
• They also used multivariate Cox models to estimate hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for all-cause mortality across all fitness categories.

Results

• Findings reported that a total of 1276 patients out of 9068 hypertensives had resistant hypertension defined as systolic and/or diastolic blood pressure ≥140 and/or ≥90 mm Hg respectively on three anti-hypertensive medications one of which was a diuretic or use of ≥4 anti-hypertensive medications.
• Researchers observed an inverse association between cardiorespiratory fitness and all-cause mortality in patients with resistant hypertension, during a follow-up of 9.5±4.2 years.
• Data revealed that compared to the Least-Fit group, mortality was reduced by 21% in the Low-Fit group (HR: 0.79; CI: 0.60-1.05; p-value: 0.280), 36% in the Moderate-Fit group (HR: 0.64; CI: 0.48-0.87; p-value 0.001) and 62% in the High-Fit group (HR: 0.38; CI: 0.25-0.56; p-value <0.001).