A Comparative Study of Heart Rate Variability in Diabetic Subjects and Normal Subjects

Aim: The main objective of this study is to enlighten medical faculty and diabetic patients about neurological and cardiovascular complications in Diabetes and to compare heart rate variability in normal individuals and diabetic patients. Materials and method : This research study was case-control study using Niviqure data acquisition system to record 5-minutes E.C.G. in 400 individuals who consisted of the cases group comprised of 200 diabetic patients and controls group consisted of 200 healthy individuals.5-minutes E.C.G. data gathered was subjected to frequency domain analysis of Heart Rate Variability and from which various parameter depicting parasympathetic activity and sympathetic activity were analyzed. HbA1c levels were estimated by high performance liquid chromatography. Statistical analysis was done using MS office excel 2007 software. Results: In the present study it was observed that parameters of heart rate variability are reduced (power of High Frequency-H.F., power of Low Frequency-L.F., total power-T.P. and L.F. /H.F. ratio) and parameters of heart rate variability depicting parasympathetic modulation of heart (H.F.) are more reduced when compared to parameters of heart rate variability depicting sympathetic modulation (L.F.) in diabetics compared to normal individuals. It was also found that there is a negative correlation between HbA1c values of subjects and parameters of HRV. Conclusion: These results may be attributed to early parasympathetic damage due to axonal degeneration of longer vagal fibers .This axonal degeneration is mostly caused due to chronically elevated levels of blood glucose.