Cardiac rhythm in hypertension assessed through 24 hour ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring. Effects of load manipulation with atenolol, verapamil, and nifedipine.

In systemic hypertension left ventricular wall stress (afterload) is reduced and function enhanced, compared with normal, in the presence of concentric hypertrophy; the opposite occurs when hypertrophy is combined with dilatation. In this study we tested the hypothesis that cardiac rhythm may be related, in part, to the interacting variables: left ventricular structure, afterload, and function.