Evaluation of blood pressure changes in post coronary artery bypass patients undergoing physical training.

physical training reduces 24h blood pressure (BP) in hypertensive and healthy normotensive subjects. Aim of our study is to evaluate clinic blood pressure (BP) and 24h BP monitoring in a group of patients undergoing rehabilitation after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). We considered 24h BP in 20 patients (mean age 62+/−4.97 SD) who underwent 6 week cardiac rehabilitation programme 15 days after CABG: 10 were undergoing physical training, 10 were undergoing rehabilitation but with no physical training programme. Clinic BP, 24h BP (Takeda 2420) and 24h heart rate (HR) were measured 7 days after CABG (T1), before rehabilitation (T2), after rehabilitation (T3) and after returning to work (74). Results were compared with a group of 24 healthy controls matched for age and sex of a general population. 14 patients finished the study (50% trained). Our data show a significative increase of clinic systolic BP (SBP) from T1 to T4 in the group undergoing physical training (120 SE 4 vs 135 SE 4 mmHg, p=0.02): in this group HR 24h mean, nocturnal HR mean, diurnal HR mean decreased significantly (respectively p=0.01, p=0.005) from T1 to T4. In the not trained group the was not a significative change of the considered parameters. BP 24hmean did not change from T1 to T4 in both groups (6%). In the trained group clinic SBP, clinic DBP and diurnal DBP mean were significantly lower than controls at T1 (respectively p=0.02, p=0.01, p=0.03, p=0.01) and at T4 only clinic DBP and diurnal DBP mean were significantly lower than controls (respectively p=0.01, p=0.04). our data show that the physical training does not influence 24h BP profile. Physical training is effective both in increasing clinic SBP and in decreasing HR mean.