MONDAY, Jan. 23, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- The effect of resting heart rate (RHR) on all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events varies with age, according to a study published online Dec. 30 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Kuibao Li, M.D., from Capital Medical University in Beijing, and colleagues conducted a prospective cohort study involving 6,209 individuals aged 40 years and older without cardiovascular disease at baseline. Participants were interviewed in 1991 using a standard questionnaire to obtain information on demographics, medical history, and lifestyle risk factors. RHR was categorized according to quartiles.
The researchers found that 840 subjects died and 676 experienced a cardiovascular event during a mean follow-up of 8.3 years. In older participants (≥60 years), there was a significant association for higher RHR with all-cause mortality (P trend < 0.001) and cardiovascular events (P trend = 0.002), which was not seen in younger participants (<60 years; both P trend > 0.05). Age had a significant modifying effect on the correlation between RHR and all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events (P interaction < 0.001 and P interaction = 0.002, respectively). After exclusion of individuals who died or had a cardiovascular event during the first two years of follow-up the results were similar.
"High RHR appears to be an independent determinant of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events in older but not younger individuals," the authors write.
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