Slow Heart Rate Recovery Is Associated with Increased Exercise-induced Arterial Stiffness in Normotensive Patients without Overt Atherosclerosis.

Sympathovagal imbalance demonstrated by slow HRR was associated with increased arterial stiffness and, above all, was closely associated with exercise-induced arterial stiffness in normotensive patients without overt atherosclerosis. This phenomenon might have been observed because blunt carotid arterial vasomotion following exercise results from autonomic dysfunction as well as vascular endothelial dysfunction.