Human obesity is characterized by profound alterations in the hemodynamic and metabolic states. Whether these alterations involve sympathetic drive is controversial. In 10 young obese subjects (body mass index, 40.5 +/- 1.2 kg/m2, mean +/- SEM) with normal blood pressure and 8 age-matched lean normotensive control subjects, we measured beat-to-beat arterial blood pressure (Finapres technique), heart rate (electrocardiogram), postganglionic muscle sympathetic nerve activity (microneurography at the peroneal nerve), and venous plasma norepinephrine (high-performance liquid chromatography). The measurements were performed in baseline conditions and, with the exception of plasma norepinephrine, during baroreceptor stimulation and deactivation caused by increases and reductions of blood pressure via intravenous infusions of phenylephrine and nitroprusside. Baseline blood pressure and heart rate were similar in obese and control subjects. Plasma norepinephrine was also similar in the two groups. Muscle sympathetic nerve activity, however, was 38.6 +/- 5.1 bursts per minute in obese subjects and less than half that level in control subjects (18.7 +/- 1.3 bursts per minute), the difference being highly statistically significant (P < .02). Muscle sympathetic nerve activity and heart rate were reduced during phenylephrine infusion and increased during nitroprusside infusion, but the changes were about half as great in obese subjects as in control subjects. Thus, even in the absence of any blood pressure alteration, human obesity is characterized by a marked sympathetic activation, possibly because of an impairment of reflex sympathetic restraint. This may be involved in the high rate of hypertension and cardiovascular complications seen in obesity.

Abstract-Studies performed in experimental animals and in humans have documented that high blood pressure markedly impairs baroreceptor control of heart rate. Whether a similar impairment also characterizes baroreceptor control of sympathetic activity modulating peripheral vasomotor tone is still unknown. In 28 untreated essential hypertensive subjects [14 of moderate and 14 of more severe degree, age 51.6Ϯ2.4 and 52.6Ϯ2.1 years (meanϮSEM)] and in 13 untreated secondary hypertensives (renovascular or pheochromocytoma, age 50.1Ϯ4.6 years), we measured beat-to-beat arterial blood pressure (finger photoplethysmographic device), heart rate (electrocardiogram), and efferent postganglionic muscle sympathetic nerve activity (microneurography) at rest and during baroreceptor stimulation and deactivation induced by stepwise intravenous infusions of phenylephrine and nitroprusside, respectively. Data were compared with those obtained in 15 age-matched normotensive control subjects. Muscle sympathetic nerve activity (bursts per 100 heart beats) showed a progressive and significant (PϽ.01) increase from normotension (40.3Ϯ3.3) to moderate (55.6Ϯ4.1) and more severe essential hypertension (68.2Ϯ4.1), paralleling the progressive increase in blood pressure values. In contrast, muscle sympathetic nerve activity was not increased in secondary hypertensives (40.5Ϯ6.7) despite blood pressure values similar to or even greater than those of severe essential hypertensives. In both essential and secondary hypertensives, baroreceptor-heart rate control was displaced toward elevated blood pressure values and markedly impaired compared with normotensive subjects (average reduction, 38.5%). In contrast, the sympathoinhibitory and sympathoexcitatory responses to baroreceptor stimulation and deactivation were displaced toward elevated blood pressure values but similar in all groups. Thus, sympathetic activation characterizes essential but not secondary hypertension. Regardless of its nature, however, hypertension is not accompanied by an impairment of baroreceptor modulation of sympathetic activity. Key Words: sympathetic nervous system Ⅲ autonomic nervous system Ⅲ baroreceptors Ⅲ hypertension, essential C onclusive evidence shows that baroreceptor modulation of heart rate is impaired in animals and patients with high blood pressure.1-3 Whether baroreceptor modulation of vasomotor tone is similarly affected is controversial, however. This is because although some studies have reported vascular, blood pressure, and sympathetic responses to baroreceptor manipulation to be reduced in hypertensive animals and humans, [4][5][6] other studies have found vascular, blood pressure, and sympathetic effects of alterations in baroreceptor activity to be unmodified or enhanced in experimental or human hypertension as compared with the normotensive condition. [7][8][9][10][11] This has led to the hypothesis that baroreceptor control of the cardiovascular functions is desmogenously affected by high blood pressure, ie, that this condition impairs barorecep...

In obese normotensive subjects, a reduction in body weight induced by a hypocaloric diet with normal sodium content exerts a marked reduction in sympathetic activity owing to central sympathoinhibition. This can be due to the consequences of an increased insulin sensitivity but also to a restoration of the baroreflex control of the cardiovascular system with weight loss.