Heart rate recovery (HRR), a noninvasive assessment of autonomic nervous function, is widely studied in adults with hypertension or prehypertension. This study aimed to evaluate whether HRR was independently associated with prehypertension in obese children. A total of 326 obese children aged 7 to 16 years were divided into 2 groups: prehypertension group and normal blood pressure (BP) group (control group). Anthropometric indexes, physical activity (PA) information, biochemical parameters, and HRR were collected. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that body mass index (BMI) (odds ratio [OR] = 1.116; P < .05), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) (OR = 1.258; P < .05), homeostasis model assessment (HOMA-IR) (OR = 1.087; P < .01), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (OR = 1.304; P < .01), and HRR values (OR = 0.892; P < .05) were independent risk factors of prehypertension in obese children. Our findings demonstrated decreased HRR was closely associated with prehypertension in obese children, which indicated studying the role of sympathetic/parasympathetic imbalance might be helpful to explore the underlying mechanism.
Keywords: heart rate recovery; obese adolescents; obese children; prehypertension.