Excess Body Fat Hinders Blood Pressure Control

Too much body fat can impede the body's ability to control blood pressurefollowing a stressful event. One crucial way that blood pressure is regulated isthrough natriuresis—the release of salt or sodium chloride in the urine. In thecurrent study, reported recently in the American Journal of Hypertension, theamount of salt released in the urine fell as body fat rose.

The research involved an analysis of body composition and natriuresis in127 African Americans and Caucasians with an average age of 16 years. Theparticipants were asked to play a competitive video game for an hour. Theresults of the study showed that stress was connected with an increase inblood pressure and natriuresis. The scale of these changes decreased as bodyfat went up. Upon further examination, the researchers also found that an individual'srace predicted how high the blood pressure increased during stress.