Why the study?
Does opioid receptor blockade with naltrexone antagonize the blood pressure-lowering effects of relaxation training during stress in young men with mildly elevated arterial pressure?
Does opioid receptor blockade with naltrexone antagonize the blood pressure-lowering effects of relaxation training during stress in young men with mildly elevated arterial pressure?
The blood pressure-lowering effects of relaxation training during stress appear to be mediated by endogenous opioid mechanisms.
Naltrexone antagonism implicates endogenous opioids in relaxation-mediated blunting of diastolic BP reactivity; leaves open clinical translation to hypertension management.
The present study was designed to determine the role of endogenous opioid mechanisms in the circulatory effects of relaxation training. Opioid mechanisms were assessed by examination of the effects of opioid receptor blockade with naltrexone on acute cardiovascular reactivity to laboratory stress before and after relaxation training. Thirty-two young men with mildly elevated casual arterial pressure were recruited for placebo-controlled naltrexone stress tests and relaxation training. The results indicated that relaxation training significantly reduced the diastolic pressure response to mental arithmetic stress. Opioid receptor blockade with naltrexone antagonized the effects of relaxation training. These findings suggest that some of the physiological effects of relaxation training are mediated by augmentation of inhibitory opioid mechanisms.
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McCubbin et al. (1996) studied this question.
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