The 24-Hour Cardiac Autonomic Activity in Patients With Allergic Rhinitis

Background: Definitive knowledge of the 24-hour cardiac autonomic activity in patients with allergic rhinitis (AR) is lacking.Thus, we aimed to evaluate heart rate variability (HRV), which is used to measure cardiac autonomic activity by 24-hour Holter monitoring in patients with AR.Methods: We enrolled 32 patients who visited our clinic and were diagnosed with AR.The control group was selected four-fold (n = 128) by matching (age, sex, hypertension, and diabetes) in the AR group from a Holter registry in the cardiology department.The HRV results, which were measured using 24-hour Holter monitoring, were compared between the AR and control groups.Results: All time-domain parameters of HRV revealed no differences between the groups.However, among the frequency domain parameters of HRV, the low-frequency to highfrequency ratio and low-frequency power in normalized units were significantly lower in the AR group.Conversely, high-frequency power in normalized units was significantly higher in the AR group.In the multiple regression analysis, AR was independently associated with sympathetic withdrawal (adjusted odds ratio = 3.393, P = 0.020) after adjusting for age, sex, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and hyperlipidemia.Conclusions: The present findings suggest differences in cardiac autonomic activity which are related with sympathetic withdrawal in patients with AR compared with that in the normal population over 24 hours.