Recommendations in Post-exercise Hypotension: Concerns, Best Practices and Interpretation

Abstract

Post-exercise hypotension (PEH) is a clinically relevant phenomenon that has been widely investigated. However, the characteristics of study designs, such as familiarization to blood pressure measurements, duration of PEH assessments or strategies to analyze PEH present discrepancies across studies. Thus identifying key points to standardize across PEH studies is necessary to help researchers to build stronger study designs, to facilitate comparisons across studies, and to avoid misinterpretations of results. The goal of this narrative review of methods used in PEH studies was therefore to gather and find possible influencers in the characteristics of study design and strategies to analyze blood pressure. Data found in this review suggest that PEH studies should have at least two familiarization screening visits, and should assess blood pressure for at least 20 min, but preferably for 120 min, during recovery from exercise. Another important aspect is the strategy to analyze PEH, which may lead to different interpretations. This information should guide a priori study design decisions.