Heart rate variability and its relationship with central and general obesity in obese normotensive adolescents

To analyze the relationship between the heart rate variability parameters and the indicators of central and general obesity in obese normotensive adolescents.

Seventyfour 13 to 18 year-old obese normotensive adolescents participated in this study. The indicators analyzed for central and general obesity were waist circumference and body mass index, respectively. Heart rate variability was obtained by heart rate monitoring. For this, the adolescents remained in a supine position for 7 minutes with controlled breathing. Parameters were obtained in time domain (standard deviation of all the RR intervals, root mean square of successive differences between the normal adjacent RR intervals and the percentage of adjacent intervals with more than 50ms) and frequency domain variables (low and high frequency bands and the sympathovagal balance).

After adjustments for gender, age, and cardiorespiratory fitness, a negative correlation between the waist circumference and the root mean square of successive differences between the normal adjacent RR intervals (ß=-1.51; standard error=0.56; p<0.05) and the percentage of adjacent intervals with more than 50 ms (ß=-0.96; standard error=0.34; p<0.05) were observed, while the body mass index showed no significant correlation with any heart rate variability parameter (p>0.05).

Central obesity is a better discriminator than general obesity of autonomic cardiac dysfunction in obese normotensive adolescents.