Heart Rate Recovery and Risk of Cardiovascular Events and All–Cause Mortality: A Meta–Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies [Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis]

BackgroundHeart rate recovery (HRR) is a noninvasive assessment of autonomic dysfunction and has been implicated with risk of cardiovascular events and all‐cause mortality. However, evidence has not been systematically assessed. We performed a meta‐analysis of prospective cohort studies to quantify these associations in the general population.Methods and ResultsA literature search using 3 databases up to August 2016 was conducted for studies that reported hazard ratios with 95% CIs for the association between baseline HRR and outcomes of interest. The overall hazard ratios were calculated using a random‐effects model. There were 9 eligible studies in total, with 5 for cardiovascular events enrolling 1061 cases from 34 267 participants, and 9 for all‐cause mortality enrolling 2082 cases from 41 600 participants. The pooled hazard ratios associated with attenuated HRR versus fast HRR that served as the referent were 1.69 (95% CI 1.05–2.71) for cardiovascular events and 1.68 (95% CI 1.51–1.88) for all‐cause mortality. For every 10 beats per minute decrements in HRR, the hazard ratios were 1.13 (95% CI 1.05–1.21) and 1.09 (95% CI 1.01–1.19), respectively. Further analyses suggested that the associations observed between attenuated HRR and risk of fatal cardiovascular events and all‐cause mortality were independent of traditional metabolic factors for cardiovascular disease (all P
Source: JAHA:Journal of the American Heart Association - Category: Cardiology Authors: Tags: Electrophysiology, Cardiovascular Disease, Epidemiology, Exercise Systematic Review and Meta ‐ Analysis Source Type: research