HR Variation and Common Clinical Correlations

A Swedish population-based study provided reference ranges of ambulatory heart rate (HR) in a middle-aged population and suggested that the wide range of interindividual differences in HR largely independent of common clinical risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. The study included 5809 atrial fibrillation-free individuals, aged 50–65 years, with a healthy subset of 3942 individuals between 2016 and 2018. The average mean and minimum HRs were 73±9 and 48±7 beats per minute (bpm) in men and 76±8 and 51±7 bpm in women; the reference range for mean ambulatory HR was 57–90 bpm in men and 61–92 bpm in women. Average daytime and night-time HRs were also reported. Less than 15% of the interindividual differences in HR might be explained by clinical variables, including age, sex, height, body mass index, physical activity, smoking, alcohol intake, diabetes, hypertension, hemoglobin level, use of beta-blockers, estimated glomerular filtration rate, per cent of predicted forced expiratory volume in 1 s and coronary artery calcium score. Higher HRs have been linked to increased all-cause mortality and cardiovascular diseases in previous studies including a genome-wide association study identified HR-associated genes which explain 2.5% of the differences in resting HR. Source: https://heart.bmj.com/