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The physiological determinants and risk correlations of elevated heart rate
1Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Sperimentale, University of Padova, Italy.
Insights
Fast heart rate is linked to high blood pressure and metabolic issues, increasing cardiovascular risk. Lowering heart rate may reduce atherosclerosis and improve life expectancy.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Metabolic Health
- Hypertension Research
Background:
- Fast heart rate (tachycardia) is associated with elevated blood pressure and metabolic disturbances.
- These associations persist across different demographics, including the elderly and hypertensive individuals, even after controlling for lifestyle factors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between heart rate, blood pressure, and metabolic risk factors.
- To understand the role of sympathetic overactivity and direct cardiac effects in cardiovascular risk.
Main Methods:
- Utilized mixture analysis across three distinct populations.
- Analyzed associations between heart rate, blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose, and insulin levels.
Main Results:
- A subpopulation with high heart rates exhibited higher levels of blood pressure, lipids, glucose, and insulin.
- Sympathetic overactivity appears to drive both increased heart rate and blood pressure, along with metabolic abnormalities.
- Fast heart rate directly contributes to cardiovascular risk by increasing arterial stress.
Conclusions:
- Clustering of risk factors in individuals with fast heart rates explains higher cardiovascular morbidity.
- Tachycardia is both a marker and a direct contributor to cardiovascular disease.
- Heart rate-lowering antihypertensive therapies show promise for increasing human life expectancy.
Abstract:
A number of studies have shown that fast heart rate is associated with high blood pressure and metabolic disturbances, and that it is a strong precursor of hypertension, atherosclerosis, and cardiovascular events. Subjects with tachycardia often also exhibit increased plasma insulin, overweight, and higher hematocrit. These relationships have been observed also in the elderly and among hypertensive individuals and have held true after controlling for smoking, alcohol intake, and physical activity habits. In three different populations studied with a mixture analysis we demonstrated that the heart rate-blood pressure association was mostly explained by a subpopulation of subjects with high heart rates who had higher levels of blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides, postload glucose, and plasma insulin. The clustering of these risk factors may explain why cardiovascular morbidity is higher in individuals with fast heart rates. Sympathetic overactivity seems to be responsible for both the increase in heart rate and blood pressure, and for the metabolic abnormalities. In addition to being a marker of sympathetic overactivity, tachycardia seems to have a direct action in the induction of risk. Studies in cholesterol-fed monkeys have shown that the reduction of heart rate could retard the development of coronary atherosclerosis. Furthermore, fast heart rate increases the pulsatile nature of the arterial blood flow and increases arterial wall stress. Antihypertensive drugs that lower the heart rate seem to have a good potential for prolonging life expectancy in humans.