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Heart rate and mortality

A Reunanen1, J Karjalainen, P Ristola

  • 1National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Central Military Hospital, Helsinki, Finland. anti.reunanen@ktl.fi

Journal of Internal Medicine
|February 26, 2000
PubMed

Insights

High resting heart rate is a significant predictor of mortality from all causes, particularly non-cardiovascular, non-malignant diseases. While linked to cardiovascular disease, this association is explained by blood pressure.

Area of Science:

  • Cardiology
  • Public Health
  • Epidemiology

Background:

  • Resting heart rate is a potential predictor of mortality, but its association with cardiovascular disease and other causes of death is debated.
  • Previous studies have yielded conflicting results regarding the predictive value of heart rate for mortality.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To clarify the role of heart rate as a predictor of all-cause mortality.
  • To investigate the association between heart rate and specific causes of death in a large population.

Main Methods:

  • Prospective population study with a 23-year follow-up period.
  • Inclusion of 5598 men and 5119 women aged 30-59 years at baseline.
  • Resting electrocardiograms (ECGs) were used to measure heart rate.

Main Results:

  • A total of 1848 men and 840 women died during follow-up.
  • Elevated heart rate was significantly associated with increased mortality from all causes, cardiovascular causes, and natural non-cardiovascular, non-malignant causes.
  • The association between high heart rate and cardiovascular mortality was explained by high blood pressure; however, the link to non-cardiovascular mortality remained significant after adjusting for risk factors.

Conclusions:

  • High resting heart rate is a clinically observable, albeit nonspecific, predictor of mortality.
  • The increased cardiovascular mortality risk associated with high heart rate is largely attributable to its correlation with elevated blood pressure.
  • Elevated heart rate is primarily linked to an increased risk of death from non-cardiovascular or non-malignant diseases.
Abstract

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