Effect of Exercise Testing on Short-term Heart Rate Variability in Patients with Coronary Heart Disease

Hui-Yan Niu, Dai-Fu Zhang, Bo Liang, Juan Wang, Hua Zhou, Shao-Wei Zhuang

Abstract

Objective To study the effect of exercise testing on short term heart rate variability in patients with CHD.Methods In 12 patients with CHD and 12 age-and sex-matched healthy controls, short-term frequency domain analysis was performed at respective stage before, during and after ET.Results It showed that (1) No significant difference was detected in 5-minute frequency domain (LFnorm, HFnorm and LF/HF) of stationary supine position before exercise (P0.05) between CHD and controls. In CHD, there was no significant difference in 5-minute frequency spectral components of supine position between pre-exercise and post-exercise results (P0.05); (2) All of LFnorm, HFnorm and LF/HF were found to decrease gradually during ET and to reach the lowest levels in maximal ET and to increase during the recovery period in both CHD and controls (P0.05).Between the two groups, significant difference was shown in the second 5-minute frequency domain analysis (LFnorm, HFnorm and LF/HF) after ET(P0.05); (3) In the whole course of ET,the frequency domain analysis showed that LF and LFnorm were higher and HF,HFnorm were lower in CHD than those in controls.Conclusion It is concluded that (1) Sympathovagal nervous system remains balanced in patients with CHD in stationary supine position without myocardiac ischemia; (2) Vagal tone withdraws during the exercise time and increases during the recovery period; (3) The changes of HRV in patients with CHD present ischemia-induced reflective sympathetic activity predominance during the recovery period; (4) The autonomic nervous system in CHD is disordered during ET. This results suggest that ET is helpful in detecting the disorder of sympathovagal nervous system in patients with CHD.
Original languageChinese
JournalTongji Daxue Xuebao (Yixue Ban)
Volume26
Issue number3
Number of pages4
Publication statusPublished - 2005

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