The authors examined four groups of 30-60-year-old men who different by the blood pressure at rest and the amount of physical activity: a control group of healthy inactive subjects (n = 10), healthy contesting endurance runners (n = 10), inactive men with mild essential hypertension (n = 10) and contesting endurance runners with mild essential hypertension who had been active for at least 8 years and had dispensary care (n = 10). Indicators of left ventricular hypertrophy were evaluated by one-dimensional echocardiography and also some functional indicators (pulse volume, systemic vascular resistance and fractionated reduction), using the method of pulsed Doppler echocardiography. The hypertonic runners had in all investigated indicators of left ventricular hypertrophy the highest values but differed significantly only from the control group (p less than 0.01). Individual prevalence of values which are beyond the accepted physiological range are however surprisingly low (10-20%). From the functional aspect they are characterized by a significantly higher pulse volume as compared with controls, in the remaining indicators they do not differ significantly. Echocardiographic examination of runners with mild hypertension can help to detect subjects with left ventricular hypertrophy which may already be a complication of the basic disease. Contest activities should not be permitted, unless it is possible to test left ventricular function by a haemodynamic loading test.

Keywords: Adult; Cardiomegaly /diagnostic imaging/; Echocardiography; Hemodynamics; Humans; Hypertension /complications/; Male; Middle Aged; Running