Physical activity and heart rate variability in older adults: the Cardiovascular Health Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Cardiac mortality and electrophysiological dysfunction both increase with age. Heart rate variability (HRV) provides indices of autonomic function and electrophysiology that are associated with cardiac risk. How habitual physical activity among older adults prospectively relates to HRV, including nonlinear indices of erratic sinus patterns, is not established. We hypothesized that increasing the levels of both total leisure-time activity and walking would be prospectively associated with more favorable time-domain, frequency-domain, and nonlinear HRV measures in older adults.

Methods and results

We evaluated serial longitudinal measures of both physical activity and 24-hour Holter HRV over 5 years among 985 older US adults in the community-based Cardiovascular Hea

SUBMITTER: Soares-Miranda L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4038662 | biostudies-literature | 2014 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature