REPRODUCIBILITY OF RESTING BLOOD PRESSURE AND HEART RATE: THE HERITAGE FAMILY STUDY

590 The purpose of this study was to determine the reproducibility of resting systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood (DBP) pressure, mean arterial pressure (MAP) and heart rate (HR) obtained at 4 Clinical Centers (CC) on 2 separate days prior to an exercise training intervention with 822 subjects participating in the HERITAGE study. Four to 8 BP and HR measurements were taken under controlled conditions on 2 separate days. The mean SBP, DBP, MAP, and HR from each day were used. Reproducibility estimates included technical error (TE), coefficient of variation within subjects (CV), and intraclass correlation (ICC). The SBP, DBP, and MAP were highly reproducible and HR was slightly less reproducible (see Table 1). These results were fairly consistent when analyzed by sex, race, age, cuff size, BMI, %fat and across CCs. It is concluded that within subject day-to-day variations are small compared to between subject variance for resting SBP, DBP, MAP and HR. This makes it appropriate to pool the data, analyze it for changes subsequent to endurance exercise training, and to determine the possible genetic basis for these changes.Table 1: Reproducibility of SBP, DBP, MAP, and HR across two days Supported by multiple NIH-NHLBI grants.