Key result
Slow breathing strongly increased DFAα1 and decreased DFAα2, ApEn, and SampEn, whereas light exercise significantly affected traditional HRV indices (p<0.01) but not nonlinear indices.
Why the study?
Do breathing patterns and light exercise affect linear and nonlinear heart rate variability in healthy male volunteers?
Do breathing patterns and light exercise affect linear and nonlinear heart rate variability in healthy male volunteers?
Respiratory activity is a significant potential contributor to nonlinear heart rate variability indices at rest and during light dynamic exercise, which must be considered when using these measures for cardiac risk stratification.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Breathing patterns may confound nonlinear HRV interpretation; leaves open reliability for cardiac risk stratification.
Despite their use in cardiac risk stratification, the physiological meaning of nonlinear heart rate variability (HRV) measures is not well understood. The aim of this study was to elucidate effects of breathing frequency, tidal volume, and light exercise on nonlinear HRV and to determine associations with traditional HRV indices. R-R intervals, blood pressure, minute ventilation, breathing frequency, and respiratory gas concentrations were measured in 24 healthy male volunteers during 7 conditions: voluntary breathing at rest, and metronome guided breathing (0.1, 0.2 and 0.4 Hz) during rest, and cycling, respectively. The effect of physical load was significant for heart rate (HR; p < 0.001) and traditional HRV indices SDNN, RMSSD, lnLFP, and lnHFP (p < 0.01 for all). It approached significance for sample entropy (SampEn) and correlation dimension (D2) (p < 0.1 for both), while HRV detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) measures DFAα1 and DFAα2 were not affected by load condition. Breathing did not affect HR but affected all traditional HRV measures. D2 was not affected by breathing; DFAα1 was moderately affected by breathing; and DFAα2, approximate entropy (ApEn), and SampEn were strongly affected by breathing. DFAα1 was strongly increased, whereas DFAα2, ApEn, and SampEn were decreased by slow breathing. No interaction effect of load and breathing pattern was evident. Correlations to traditional HRV indices were modest (r from -0.14 to -0.67, p < 0.05 to <0.01). In conclusion, while light exercise does not significantly affect short-time HRV nonlinear indices, respiratory activity has to be considered as a potential contributor at rest and during light dynamic exercise.
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Weippert et al. (2015) studied Healthy (n=24). Breathing patterns and light exercise vs. Voluntary breathing at rest was evaluated on Linear and nonlinear heart rate variability (HRV). Slow breathing strongly increased DFAα1 and decreased DFAα2, ApEn, and SampEn, whereas light exercise significantly affected traditional HRV indices (p<0.01) but not nonlinear indices.
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